v\ 












'^^ 
^ 






.^ 

\ 



,^.4: "^^^ /M^-^ ^^^ 



. 'o . » » .0^ \D ''^ ,\ s^ 










■M^: 






°o 



■■'- -^o 



<^.-:»- 






^0* 
■1 o 






V ^,^ :/^^^'^ 













'-'f.":'- ,0^^ ^ '^?^' A 










>>-^4' 



■^v. 



^0 



^^0^ 



^oV" 




w 








V .• " • °- O, 


o^. 


■^ -'^f/k'^ "^ 










LETTERS OF 
HENRY WESTON FARNSWORTH 



LETTERS 

OF 

HENRY WESTON FARNSWORTH 

/I 

OF THE FOREIGN LEGION 



-y 



BOSTON 

PRIVATELY PRINTED 

1916 



Cofiyright, 1916, by William Farns^uorth 



.F3 



DEC 29 1316 

Z). B. Ufidike • The Merrymount Press • Boston 



'a,A446971 



FOREWORD 

HENRY Weston Farnsworth was 
born on August 7, 1890, in Ded- 
ham, Massachusetts. In those days Ded- 
ham was a very quiet little country vil- 
lage. He lived there eleven years of the 
most uneventful, radiant, joyous child- 
hood, growing up in an intimacy with 
his family which few other conditions 
would have allowed. 

When eleven he went to a day-school 
in Boston. It was his first contact with 
the outside world. One day, after he had 
been to school for a few weeks, he came 
home three hours late, and said, ' ' Mother, 
if you were a man, would you want to 
experience life? I felt that way this after- 
noon, and I have had a soda in every soda- 
water fountain in Boston." 

The next year he went to Groton, as 
had been planned from his birth, and 
stayed there until he graduated, six years 
later. 



vi FOREWORD 

When he was seventeen he travelled for 
the first time. Until then he had never been 
farther from Boston than New York. That 
summer he went with his family to Eng- 
land and France. He was filled with an 
enthusiasm for history, art, literature, that 
came as a result of his reading and think- 
ing. Milton, Lamb, De Quincey, Ste- 
venson, Ibsen, Byron, Omar Khayyam, 
Mommsen, Carlyle, Sienkiewicz, Rich- 
ard Burton, had been his companions for 
years. He was met on all sides by old 
friends, on all sides by new possibilities. 

In the autumn of 1908 he entered Har- 
vard. His enthusiasm for reading and mu- 
sic never diminished, but was not trans- 
ferred to his regular studies. He made no 
record as a student, not even a record for 
constant attendance at courses. He lived 
a very casual life, of no particular merit. 
Yet through it all he read with increasing 
interest, Tolstoi, Dostoievski, and Ibsen, 
noticeably "PeerGynt." Music had al- 



FOREWORD vii 

ways been one of his great delights, and 
going constantly to the Symphony Con- 
certs, his intelligent appreciation grew 
very much. But reading and music did 
not take all his time, and many of the 
other hours were spent in a way that does 
not deserve to be dwelt on. For all his 
reading, he was very young and callow in 
the ways of practical life, self-conscious 
and shy in society, and the Unknown fas- 
cinated him, and he made his mistakes. 

That summer of 1909 he went West 
with another man. This was the first time 
he ever travelled without his family, the 
first time he ever camped out, ever saw 
great scenery, or wild nature. He loved the 
West ever afterward — the country, the 
life, and the type of men he met there. 

The following autumn college began as 
usual, and he slipped into the way he had 
followed his first year. He tried to change, 
and found that habits are hard to break. 
So he made the decision that ruled the rest 



viii FOREWORD 

of his life. The causes go far back, back 
to that mysterious and unknown thing in 
man called ' ' soul " or " nature " or ^ ' per- 
sonality. ' ' But the tangible, outward effect 
caijie in one act. Early in November, after 
making his arrangements so well that he 
left no trace, he shipped as a deck-hand 
on a cattle-boat, and worked his way to 
England. In his passionate desire to stand 
alone, meeting life with his own strength, 
he told his plan to no one. In fact, he had 
no definite plan beyond the desire to test 
his own power. At first he tried to support 
himself by writing, in London ; and he 
found, as so many thousands have, that 
he could not. A station in Australia was 
advertising for men — they promised him 
a job, and he sailed steerage in a small 
boat. The voyage was long. The incidents 
he generally dwelt on were the steamer's 
halt at Genoa and his few hours there, 
his only glimpse of Italy ; the long hours 
he had for reading Shakespeare ; the fas- 



FOREWORD ix 

cinations of Ceylon. Years later, after his 
death, his family found a bit of manu- 
script, with no beginning and no end. It 
will tell more of this part of his life than 
any other words : 

''Lord, I wish I was coming into the 
tropics again for the first time. I came 
through the Suez Canal, and struck the 
East all in a heap. Nineteen years of age, 
and a head full of all kinds of rot at that. 
I used to walk the deck at night and just 
mutter names to myself. ' Port Said, Suez, 
Aden, Colombo, Madras, Calcutta, Ran- 
goon, Singapore, Parang' — I was espe- 
cially stuck on the last three. I did n't 
go there. I had been reading 'Robbery 
Under Arms ' and Adam Lindsay Gor- 
don's poems, and was even madder to get 
to Freemantle, Adelaide, and Melbourne. 
What romance I had in those days, and 
how quick I lost it too — that fool kind, I 
mean, like calf love." 

The first port in Australia was Free- 



X FOREWORD 

mantle. He landed, and coming back to 
the steamer after dark, he walked through 
one of the worst parts of the town. It was 
a foolish risk to chance. He was knocked 
unconscious, his money taken, his watch, 
— even his shoes. He reached the steamer 
and landed at Melbourne, but he had no 
money to get to the up-country station 
where he had been promised work. For 
days he tried to find any kind of a job, 
and could not. Finally he realized that 
he was stranded and asked a man to 
help him cable to his father. All the rest 
of his life he never forgot that the first 
act of his struggle for independence was 
a cry for help, when he had travelled to 
the other side of the world to try to help 
himself. 

He asked for little money, and went to 
work. He spent seven months in AustraHa, 
working on several diiferent sheep sta- 
tions. He learned to know discomfort, hard 
work, loneliness. As a httle fellow he was 



FOREWORD xi 

easily frightened. Certainly one of the 
characteristics of his later years, absolute 
disregard of danger, was no gift of the 
Gods at birth. He made his nerve himself, 
every bit of it, by a grim persistence, year 
after year. As a newcomer he was given 
many of the worst horses to ride, and he 
never gave in once, always conquering in 
the end. Living sometimes with six of the 
hands, sometimes out for a week at a time 
with one sheep- herder, he met the reali- 
ties of the struggle for existence, and had 
plenty of time to think. And thinking, he 
made a second decision, far harder than 
the first, and wrote that he would come 
home if his father thought it wise. 

So he sailed in August, back to what 
was apparently the old life. 

Australia brought him one great plea- 
sure in the friendship of an Irish gentle- 
man , a strange, gifted man , whose life read 
like a novel, and whose music, and love 
and knowledge of books, gave him much 



xii FOREWORD 

in common with Farnsworth — ' ' Ameri- 
canus," as he always called him. 

One of the characteristic things about 
Farnsworth was that he made his closest 
friends in strange lands. Convenience, pro- 
pinquity, meant nothing to him. When 
he met a man who interested him, and 
whom he Hked, a lasting friendship came. 

That autumn of 1910 he resumed his 
studies at Harvard. His courses were al- 
most all in the different literatures. This 
was the period when he read much Tol- 
stoi, with a comprehension that deepened 
as he knew more of Slavic history, poetry 
and philosophy of life, as he followed its 
literary history. He was studying French 
literature, too, all afire with admiration. 
He had courses in early Italian litera- 
ture and history, in modern fiction. From 
the memoirs of Casanova to the ' ' Little 
Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi ' ' and 
Longinus, and Irish folk-lore and Synge, 
he read and studied. And one of the great 



FOREWORD xiii 

influences of his life was Plato. As his 
knowledge grew, his enthusiasm grew 
also. The delight he received from books 
was beyond exaggeration. 

Music was as much a part of him as 
literature, but it is of less interest in this 
foreword to his letters, for he never made 
any himself. His studies in music taught 
him to have a very intelligent, as well 
as a very deep, joy in it, and he trained 
himself to have an excellent musical ear 
and musical memory, though he was no- 
ticeably helpless in those ways as a little 
fellow. 

Another thing that was so character- 
istic of him that no one could write of 
him without mentioning it was his love of 
riding and his keenness for polo. It bears 
little on this foreword, I suppose, but it 
filled a great deal of his time in the year 
and a half of quiet life that followed his 
return from Australia. He had, too, a love 
for long walks, alone, at night, through 



xiv FOREWORD 

the woods. The Unknown is everywhere 
at night — stars and darkness are never 
every-day matters. All his life the Un- 
known was calling to him. 

The summer of 1911 he went to the 
Harvard Engineering Camp, as he wished 
to take his degree with the class he en- 
tered in 1908. It was like him to find 
the courses there almost impossibly diffi- 
cult, and to read for refreshment Fraser's 
''Golden Bough," which might truth- 
fully be described as ' ' heavy ' ' to many 
people. 

In June, 1912, he graduated with his 
class, and sailed the next week for Eu- 
rope. He had always longed to see strange 
places. As he says himself, names fasci- 
nated him. ' ' Black Sea,' ' ' ' Caspian Sea" 
— he was wild with delight to be oiF on 
a trip to the places he had dreamed of for 
years. He went to Budapest, to Constan- 
tinople, by boat to Odessa, and then trav- 
elled up to Moscow and St. Petersburg. 



FOREWORD XV 

Moscow excited his keen enthusiasm, he 
thrilled over every detail. What he wrote 
home of as '^the little gear" of Ivan the 
Terrible, all the memories of his child- 
hood carefully preserved in a museum, 
delighted him. 

Rejoined his family in Paris and came 
home to enter the Harvard Business School 
in September. Then that autumn of 1912 
the Balkan War broke out, and he went 
over to see what he could see. The whole 
story of his trip has been told by him- 
self, in a book that he published, "The 
Log of a Would-be War Correspondent. ' ' 
There is no need to repeat. 

He returned in March, and took courses 
in a Business School until it closed in June. 
The summer was passed inDedham, with 
reading and polo. 

In the fall of 1913 the Mexican trouble 
flared out and he went down there for 
a short time. He was definitely trying 
to write by now, and was much encour- 



xvi FOREWORD 

aged when the ''Providence Journal" 
published several of his Mexican letters 
on its editorial page. He loved the land of 
Mexico, and the excitement in the air. 
And here he met one of his close friends, 
an Englishman, interesting and charm- 
ing, a keen sportsman, Avho had led an 
unusual life. A bond of affection grew 
between Farnsworth and this kindred 
spirit. 

On his return from Mexico the ' ' Provi- 
dence Journal ' ' took Farnsworth as one of 
its reporters, and he worked all winter in 
the office. The details of running a paper 
interested him, the men he met he enjoyed 
very much. It was altogether a worth while 
experience. But when the United States 
sent troops to Vera Cruz, he left Provi- 
dence and went to Mexico City for three 
months. He was there when the European 
war broke out. He came home at once, 
but said no word about going over. His 
father asked him if he would like to go. 



FOREWORD xvii 

His gratitude and appreciation were very 
deep. He left at once, determined to be an 
intelligent onlooker, and to write things 
that he hoped would be worth the reading. 
His plan was to go, if travelling proved 
possible, to London, Paris, Rome, Con- 
stantinople, and then to Russia. The en- 
trance of Turkey into the war made this 
impracticable. He got to Paris, and there 
met an Englishman, Bles, who had raised 
an independent corps that had served with 
the regular English army in the BoerWar , 
and who was trying to do it again. Farns- 
worth said he would enlist if his family 
approved, and while he was waiting for 
the answer to his letter, he drilled regu- 
larly. Then came the time for Bles to see if 
Kitchener would accept his corps. Farns- 
worth, during this interval of Bles' ab- 
sence, went to Spain, and then to the Island 
of Mallorca, where he spent a month of 
great quiet and loneliness. Then Bles ca- 
bled that no irregulars would be accepted 



xviii FOREWORD 

in this war. Farns worth returned to Paris, 
and there the spirit of France held him, 
and he cabled home to ask if he could join 
the Foreign Legion for the duration of 
the war. As soon as the answer came he 
enlisted, on New Year's Day, 1915. 

From this point his own letters will tell 
his story. 



LETTERS 

July and August, 1912 



LETTERS 

Vienna^ July 24, 1912 
Dear Mother: 

THE Orient Express arrived here at six, and 
now, having bathed and dined, I am, as 
you might say, "at your service." 

They say at the hotel that the town is deserted, 
and that the opera and theatres are all closed. 
The hotel is good, but nothing wonderful, and 
the prices are terrific. The whole place is fliU of 
Jews and Americans, and I cannot blame the 
natives for leaving; I intend to do so myself 
very shortly. 

In the meantime, as I have nothing to do, 
I shall begin my Odyssey, intending to write it 
up at each stopping-place. I cannot begin in me- 
dias res — as Boileau and others recommend — 
because I have not as yet got there and you 
would probably not like to wait, so I will begin 
after the manner of Dostoievski and make de- 
tails my forte, rather than plot, st}'le, or simile. 

I slept well as far as Dover and the crossing 
was very pleasant. A nast)^ Frenchman snored 
terribly all the way to Paris, but, neverthe- 



4 LETTERS 

less, the train was on time and I arrived about 
seven at the Continental. I came out again about 
ten and went to Cook's, who could not get me 
any accommodation until Saturday night, as I 
telegraphed in French, just by way of blague. 
After Cook's, I walked, plunged in deep thought, 
down the Avenue de 1' Opera and arrived at 
Brentano's, where the "Idiot" was not to be 
got. 

By this time I was thoroughly peevish and 
went to the Louvre and also the Arts Decora- 
tifs, where is an abundance of beautiful Persian 
things, without getting very much excited about 
anything. I will, however, admit that you know 
more than I used to about the beauties of the 
little Dutch pictures, Terburg, etc. They were 
not in that manner because he would have liked 
them, though perhaps not found them, decorative, 
which was my erstwhile objection, as I remem- 
ber, and, therefore, the objection to them must 
be put down to youthful romanticism. It must 
be explained away at any cost because Voltaire 
is certain that if one has not taste as a child, one 
never gets any more. Something — not even lots 
of bad taste — cannot be made out of nothing. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 5 

By this time it was 1:30, so I drove to the 
Cafe de Paris, where I had a very wonderful 
lunch. I am sure I could imitate the "fat friend" 
describing a salade aux poissons which was the 
piece de resistance of the meal. 

You, however, will probably be more inter- 
ested in what I thought of the Luxemburg. I 
walked there after my lunch. It is a very interest- 
ing place, "to my mind." We all know as much 
as we ever will — though I suppose each genera- 
tion will have different theories about the matter 
— about the art of the past, but the art of the 
present and its probable tendencies for the future 
I find fascinating. The Rodins, especially the " St.- 
Jean Baptiste" and" L'Age d'Airain," are very 
wonderfiil. I am sure that Pericles would have 
admired them; Phidias might have been jealous 
and I am certain Polyclitus would have been, 
but what appear to be his school do not seem 
to appreciate the best in him. I do not think that 
they are any better or much worse than the late 
Hellenistics, witness the "Knife Sharpener" and 
some of the Marsias productions of the Alex- 
andrian period. It makes me crazy to get to Rus- 
sia because there I expect to find a different order 



6 LETTERS 

of things — an art that has something besides its 
own technique to express, and that can still be 
archaic. About that, 7ious verrons. 

There are also some nice Degas, " La Car- 
mencita," etc., which you probably know, and 
two wonderful Carrieres, which I do not re- 
member. Rodin's " Hand of God" is also there, 
but I do not think it is as good as the " Hand of 
Fate" in marble in New York. His "Douleur" 
is also up to par. I think he makes God too much 
of an aristocrat, — I mean in" Le Mainde Dieu," 
— and I do not think it has the inexorability 
of the New York " Fate." I do not mean that 
because you are anthropomorphic you should 
be a socialist (nihilist is better) , but if you get 
a chance to see it, you will agree with me. And 
so on ''ad Mesopotamia" when we meet again. 

After the Luxemburg I walked about the 
streets in that quarter and bought my " Idiot " 
and another of the Master's lesser works. I saw a 
whole lot of Goya prints, and I am sure America 
would have been glad if I had bought them and 
charged them to J. P. Morgan. There were some 
that Mr. BuUard did not show in the Spanish 
art thing last winter. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 7 

I dined at the Abbaye, and, having my Belle 
Amie well in mind, I offered a glass of pure 
water from the Seine to every dancer who asked 
what I was going to give her. Some of the dan- 
cing was very good. The Opera was giving 
" Aida," the Comique was not giving anything, 
and the Fran^ais was giving "Camille," so I 
went to bed about ten. 

Saturday was meant to be architecture day, 
but by the time I had done Notre Dame, the 
paintings in the Pantheon, several other churches, 
and walked for about a half-hour in the Marais, 
I decided that I was no architect and went to 
Voisin's for lunch. I do not think the food as 
good or the people less stupid than those at the 
Cafe de Paris. The glass is not half as pretty, 
although very nearly the same, but I feel that 
this is quibbling. 

After lunch I went again to the Louvre and 
spent some time there. I remembered the Car- 
na valet, Musee des Archives, etc., but never 
thought seriously of going to any of them. The 
more I look at ancient and modern art, the more 
I think that J. J. Rousseau is the father of all 
things modern, which almost everybody else 



8 LETTERS 

thinks also, though they might object at first if 
it was put to them in so many words. 

I was quite tired after the Louvre and sat 
and drank '' Une verree de cafp"* until it was time 
to hustle and get my train. The Orient Express 
leaves the Gare de I'Est at 7:13. If Papa comes 
to Paris and the Bristol is not quite what it used 
to be, let him dine on that train and then get 
off at Baden-Baden. One man served nineteen 
people to about twenty courses and gave them 
all different sorts of waters and wines, and there 
were no long waits and everything was deli- 
cious. According to all philosophies, he ought 
to have got enormous tips, but eveiybody gave 
him one franc. I am sure Tolstoi would have 
kissed him in public and (possibly) have given 
him two francs — Tolstoi knew the value of 
money. 

This morning I rose about 11:30 — time goes 
forward — and was asked to come in to what 
I thought was breakfast. It was in the German 
style, so I kept eating little fishes and salads and 
things, but when, about five courses later, cold 
meats were served after two sorts of hot ones, I 
realized that it must be lunch. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 9 

The country is very uninteresting until you 
get up near to Vienna; then, as you know, it is 
beautiful. 

At six I got here, and here endeth the first 

lesson (?). 

Your son, 

Henry 

P.S. I had not forgotten Ellen and her Paladin, 
but, as you can see for yourself, there was no 
other way to say that I supposed they were with 
you now, and that I know how glad you must 
be to have them thus, except by saying : " Dear 
Mother. I suppose Ellen and Alfred are with 
you now — how you must all be enjoying each 
other. What a wonderful time they must have 
had in Ireland ! " If you try to complete this plan 
of campaign you will, or, at any rate, I did, find 
it is a difl[icult one. Nor is it any more truly lov- 
ing than this "last but not least" style of send- 
ing them my best love. Still in the same style give 
my love to Papa; he knows how I am enjoy- 
ing the trip and that I am gratefiil. 

Still, and ever, your son, 

Henry 



10 LETTERS 

Constantinople^ July 26, 1912 
Dear Papa: 

I telegraphed you yesterday to let you know of 

my arrival in the Divine Port, and was notified 

this morning that "Farnswo London" was not 

registered. That, however, is no great matter; 

you probably got the telegram; also, code words 

are not accepted here. I do not know whether 

they will be in Russia or not. I mean to leave 

here Monday morning on the boat for Odessa. 

So much for business. 

In my last I told you of everything up to my 
arrival in Vienna, and mentioned, I believe, that 
everything was closed and deserted. 

Monday morning I issued upon the town at 
about 10:30 and instantly bought a " Guide to 
Vienna and Environs" by somebody like Bae- 
deker. I then sat in a cafe and read it until one. 
I then lunched at the same cafe and afterwards 
went to Prince Lichtenstein's gallery and stayed 
there a long time. There were many interesting 
Italian paintings of the fourteen hundreds, none 
of the first order, and one wonderful Leonardo 
portrait of a woman — not, however, worthy 
of filling the place of Mona Lisa. After that I 



1 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 11 

walked home in the rain — it rained and was cold 
all the time — and went to sleep and dined and 
went to a sort of circus and varieties which was 
very stupid and very long. I got home about 
12:30. 

The next morning I went to the bank and got 
your telegram and letter, and had breakfast at a 
cafe, and got to the Imperial Gallery at 10:30. 
All the Titians and Correggios — the "Jupiter 
and lo" which I adore — the best Velasquez 
and the one Goya were locked up. The Rubens 
were, of course, wonderful. You were in Vienna, 
I think, and will remember them. I am sure 
Mother was. 

There were also a lot of Durers which I did 
not think as good as Mrs. Gardner's, although 
his portrait of Maximilian First (I think) wore 
a whole cloak of sable. At Lichtenstein's there 
was a great big Vermeer which was not half as 
good as Mrs. Gardner's. There were also Van- 
dykes — good ones — and hosts of Ruysdaels 
and Germans of all dates. I stayed there until 
two, and then lunched and got my ticket to 
Constantinople . 

In the afternoon I went to churches and the 



12 LETTERS 

Riding School and public buildings, etc. I was 
glad to take the Orient Express again at 6:51. 
I forgot to say that some time I made up my 
mind not to go to Budapest. The train was 
crowded, and I had in my compartment an Aus- 
trian engineer, who talked endlessly about his 
son who was studying engineering in Munich. 

About eleven in the morning we got into Ser- 
bia, where the mountains and rivers and gorges 
are wonderflil. My engineer told me that I must 
drink the wines of the country because they were 
peculiar to the spot and could be had nowhere 
else. I was very glad I did. They give you, 
as nothing else does, an insight into the won- 
derfliUy costumed mountaineers we kept seeing. 
They (or rather it) is not strong and yet has a 
queer, wild flavor that — to put it unpoetically, 
but anybody who has been there would under- 
stand — seems as if it would taste very good to 
a breath strongly flavored by garlic. 

That evening we were in Bulgaria — Sofia 
at 4:12 — and there, what with the scenery, and 
the costumes of the peasants, and the goats, I al- 
most died of Romance. If I ever get a long hol- 
iday and loads of money, I am going shooting 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 13 

in the Bulgarian mountains. It is indescribable 
unless you have passe par la. 

There was bright moonlight almost all night, 
and in the early morning we stopped at a small 
Turkish town where a large detachment of troops 
was doing manoeuvres of some sort. They had 
a lot of camels — very fine camels indeed — and 
the music was made by a few of them on camels 
playing a very wild Turkish air on fifes and one 
old man beating a little, small drum "hell for 
leather." I did not count, but I think that Papa 
Haydn with his seventy-seven variations in the 
same key must have been left far behind. Yet, it 
was "terribly thrilling" (Master Builder, in case 
you were not going to give him the credit) . 

At 10 — (absolutely on time) 10 a.m. — we 
got to Constantinople, and in here I have fitted 
like a bug in a rug. I could spend six months 
here without once wanting a change. Dostoievski 
drives me on to Russia. In Vienna I felt a tour- 
ist and a stranger, etc., but here I am perfectly 
happy. The afternoon I arrived I went to hear 
the howling dervishes, who howled for two hours 
to a pack of German tourists without getting 
any appreciation except from me, who gave 



14 LETTERS 

them five piastres (about twenty-five cents) , to 
the horror of my guide, who charges enormous 
sums and who, waiving the fact that he is abso- 
lutely necessary, gives me no pleasure whatever. 

In the evening Nissim was keen that we do 
"Le Petit Paris de Constantinople," but I in- 
sisted on going to a stinking (good old English 
word) hole, where I was bitten terribly by fleas, 
over in Stamboul — I was also frightened to 
death, being the only European in sight — to see 
a gang of jumping and sword-swallowing der- 
vishes. They did not eat scorpions and glass and 
bleed the way they do in the Arab town of Port 
Said, but the singing was the real thing, and 
the rh)^hmic breathing was well done and two 
got into real crises. They began singing about 10 
and stopped at about 12:15. I spent the rest of 
the night killing fleas and rose this morning at 
about 1 1 in time to see the Sultan go to Mosque, 
attended by his ministers and a number of guards 
of various sorts. This afternoon I am going to 
Stamboul to see St. Sofia, etc. 

With love to Ellen and Mother and Alfred, 

I am 

Your son, _. 

Henry 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 15 

Odessa, July, 1912 
Dear Mother: 

I arrived safely at this place at about four this 
afternoon. At present my one desire is to get out 
of it. Nobody knows anything but Russian. The 
'^Interpreter" at the hotel knows a few words 
of German, but, unfortunately, they are not the 
words of my repertoire. " Der schzvert on me'ine 
linken^'^ " Wir saszen in e'lne Fischerhaus^"^ etc. 
I made a terrible effort (utterly wilted a collar 
and whacked the driver of my troika with my 
umbrella) , but all to no avail. Everybody in the 
hotel seemed to think that tickets are only to 
be bought in the morning and kept repeating: 
^^ Morgen, morgen?'' 

When I last wrote I had just got to Constan- 
tinople. I kept on adoring the place, but it is well 
I am out of it. The bills were astounding, though 
I tried to save. In the afternoon, after the der- 
vishes and the Sultan in the morning, I went to 
do the Mosques. We started at St. Sofia, which 
I found I knew fairly well from photographs. 
You know my penchant for the Byzantine and 
the Arabic. I sat down cross-legged on the floor 
in the comer and stayed there about an hour. 



1 6 LETTERS 

There were very few there, but some priests were 
chanting the Koran, and occasional people — the 
old and the poor — came in to pray. Of St. 
Sofia more anon. 

After that we "did" a lot of other ones — 
one entirely Arabic in style with stalactite corners 
(I do not know whether Arabic or not; I never 
heard of them except in Sicily, so they may be 
anything at all). I longed to clothe myself « la 
Pierre Loti and sit half a day in each one of them. 
At the time I thought it would be stupid. "At 
present writing," as Mr. Martin says, I think I 
was an idiot not to. 

I got back to the hotel at about 7; 30 and 
had a most interesting dinner. A huge negro, re- 
splendent in uniform, was there with a wife. 
The waiter said he was a Syrian; the wife was 
Greek, as any one could see. She also was inter- 
esting. She wore a very pretty little French dress 
— something like Ellen's bridesmaid's — and a 
coiffure that far outdid Canova's Venus (though 
something on the same style) , yet the result was 
more immodest than Ellen's Tifiany lamp. I am 
sure you will understand the effect she produced. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 17 

It was helped out by powder, blacking, etc. She 
was a very handsome woman. 

They ate everything on the bill of fare — 
rather he did — and the drinks were exactly as 
follows : 

(1) For him, xhr^Qperikas — a sort of Turk- 
ish absinthe drink, with only a little water; for 
her, a good, stout Scotch and a lean little water 
and a huge ice. 

(2) Quart of G. H. Mumm for him, and 
another Scotch, etc., for her. 

(3) With coffee in the other room — for him, 
one more per'ika^ and he was still at Benedictine 
and Grand Marnier when I left; for \\<^x^2iperika 
and a large brandy and Curagoa. 

As you can see, I let nothing escape me and 
had my eyes constantly in that direction. After 
a while, I having seated myself at the next table 
in the coffee room, she noticed this and winked 
and ogled. I waited for no more, but fled. At 
9:30 I met the trusty Nissim and we went to a 
Turk Theatre in Stamboul, where he said there 
was a very good Turkish actor. There I got 
more fleas and very bored. Of course, I knew 



18 LETTERS 

nothing of what was going on. I stopped here 
for dinner — that is, just now, at Odessa. 

By this time I had got quite used to the Turks 
and was not at all frightened of them, so we had 
supper at a small Turkish restaurant — sort of a 
v'llaine impasse. I had some oily pilau and some 
coffee. We got home about 12:40. 

I was very tired and slept late the next morn- 
ing and then went to the bank. I was very glad 
to get Papa's telegram and letter. Constantinople 
seems very much a "foreign part." 

After lunch we went in a boat up the Bos- 
phorus to Therapia and had tea and came back. 
The Bosphorus is beautiful and Therapia is ftiU 
of ambassadors. I thought of you and Byron 
and was not very much thrilled. In the evening I 
went to a Turkish cafe chantant which was not 
at all amusing. It is the streets and the mosques 
and the atmosphere of the town that I adore. 

Sunday morning we hired a couple of good 
saddle-horses — Arabian — and went off in the 
country to see the Byzantine aqueducts and lakes. 
The country was very beautiftil, full of gullies 
with splendid trees reaching up and wonderftil 
bosky dells. We lunched in one of these — oily 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 19 

fish and oily pilau, which was delicious, and 
coffee — and shortly afterwards came to the By- 
zantine relics. 

If they were transported to Beacon Street, 
you would recognize them right off; all built — 
that is, a part of one at the mouth of a lake — 
of splendid marble brought fi-om a mountain 
fifty miles away, and quantities of little green 
lizards running over them. The lake itself is in 
a hollow between two hills, and below the aque- 
duct is a large grove of trees something like our 
birches. Nissim told me, with glowing eyes, that 
formerly the Sultan used to drive out here with 
his wives and spend the afternoon and go swim- 
ming. If you — (interrupted by the infernal in- 
terpreter, who rehearsed for the fiftieth time his 
German vocabulary and at whom I yelled to 
go away — '"''Gehen Sie weg''^ ) — if you remem- 
ber your "Arabian Nights," you can see the pic- 
ture; but now, he added, ^^noiis avons change 
tout celaP 

Close by here, where we left our horses and 
went up on donkeys, we had spring water, coffee, 
and nuts at an entirely Turkish place. Except 
myself, there were one, two, or three Europeans 



20 LETTERS 

— Greeks or Armenians — and a huge mass of 
Turks who come to drink the water which gurgles 
out of a spring. There was a heavenly Turkish 
band of stringed instruments which "preluded 
in twenty-six different styles and then played a 
short air" ("Arabian Nights"). 

We got home about seven, very weary and 
Nissim in a frightful temper from weariness. The 
hall porter — a very intelligent man, who put me 
up to most of these things — told me that it was 
the prophet's birthday, and that I should go to 
St. Sofia about ten and see it illuminated. Nissim 
went almost crazy and said he was going to die, 
but we were off again at 9:30 — this time in a 
cab. 

Nothing but deep reading in Richard Burton's 
"Nights" and the church itself can give you 
any idea of what a scene it was. It was illumi- 
nated by more than ten thousand little oil lights. 
The huge floor space under the great dome was 
a mass of people. The great candles in the altar in 
the east — at any rate, towards Mecca — were 
lighted. Near the altar priests were chanting the 
Koran until it seemed as if their throats would 
burst. They filled the whole church. In the side 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 21 

aisles children played tag and screamed, but were 
drowned out by the priests — only one priest at a 
time — and the what I shall have to call " foyer" 
was crawling with beggars. There were only two 
or three women, and the men were mostly old 
and ragged. They all stood up and bowed "with 
the forehead" from time to time and muttered 
responses. I stayed to the very end and watched 
them put out the lights about the dome. You can 
see the mosaics and the faience better this way 
than by daylight. (You must think this letter like 
the brook, but on to . . . ) 

The next morning (Monday) I overslept. I 
then had to get more money to pay those horrible 
bills. The boat went at ten. If Nissimhad charged 
one pound more for his services and cabs, horses, 
etc., I should have let the boat go and gone to 
the Consul. He judged it just right. I decided to 
take the boat. I decided this after a ten-minute 
swearing match, which availed not a shilling. At 
10:04 we galloped for the boat. I could see it 
just casting off its moorings. I told him if I did 
not get it — no other for a week, French line 
out of commission — that I should take his bill 
to the Consul, and that if I did get aboard I 



22 LETTERS 

would give him ten francs. He became as fire. 
We charged the custom officers and stopped not 
for their yells. We boarded a rowboat and cap- 
tured an oarsman from another to row also. We 
gave chase with fury and began to gain. I counted 
Nissim his ten shillings and seized a rope trail- 
ing behind the steamer. A (I have forgotten the 
nautical expression) flight of stairs was lowered. 
Like a good traveller, I saw to my luggage and 
shoved it onto the steps and followed in a heap 
myself. Then with great sangfroid and amidst 
cheers and frantic good-byes from Nissim, I 
mounted the stairs and got up my two famous 
bags (they both went to Kentucky and you ought 
to know their weight). 

When on board I found nobody knew Eng- 
lish, French, or German. I could not find any 
official who could so much as read my ticket. In 
my searchings for the purser I kept going up to 
the deck above and soon arrived at the top one. 
There I saw a very nice looking man wearing 
a pair of English boots. I accosted him — by the 
grace of God, politely and gracefully — and he 
replied in English. Was very polite and got me 
the purser. The purser nearly fainted at sight 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 23 

of us, and I soon found out that my polite man 
was Nicholas, Prince of Greece, who was sitting 
in the gangway because he had taken the whole 
deck for himself, and others were not allowed 
up there. However, I saw him again going down 
to his special dinner at 8:30, and he bowed very 
pleasantly and asked me if I was still troubled. 
I started to be very much troubled at this and 
began to blush furiously, which I imagine flat- 
tered him. 

The Russian boat was quite interesting, but 
my hand is no longer that of a ready writer. So 
good-night, dear Mother, and with love to Papa, 
and remember me to " Wilks." 

Your Son. 

I feel a very distant one here — more so than in 
any English-speaking place, no matter how far 
away — also perfectly happy for a' that! 

Tuesday, the something — 
I ha-ve forgotten the date 

I could not get them to take a telegram at five 
this afternoon; perhaps they will to-morrow. 

Tell Papa to read Maurice Hewlett's " Song 
of Remy." 



24 LETTERS 

Moscow^ August 2 , 1912 
Dear Papa: 

I arrived here this morning after two nights in 

the train. It was very hot and dirty and I am 

beginning to get tired and a little upset in the 

stomach — something the way the " Great Man " 

would have been taken. I think I shall stay here 

for a week or something like that and get rested 

and well. 

When I got off the train — about 10 a.m. — 
there were no guides from any of the hotels. I 
could not make any one understand "Hotel 
d'Angleterre," so I began to yell "Slavonski" 
at the top of my lungs and was put into a cab 
and shipped here. Here there is a hall porter who 
talks a little English and I have been made very 
comfortable, so I think I shall stay. As things go 
in Russia, it is not expensive and very clean. 

The boat from Constantinople to Odessa was 
very interesting. There were about fifty first-class 
passengers. Except for the Prince of Greece, who 
kept entirely to himself, nobody spoke either 
French or English, except a nice girl who spoke 
very fluent French. I could not fathom any more 
of her name than Zerlinska. She was an actress 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 2 5 

who had been to Alexandria and was coming 
back. It was she who steered me through the 
customs and deposited me in a hotel — the one 
from which I wrote you. Almost all the men on 
the boat were as if taken for my benefit from the 
pages of " Dead Souls." The first meal they all 
drank largely of vodka and urged each other on 
to eat and drink enormously, and directly after- 
ward everybody went to sleep and did not get 
up until 4:30 for tea. I did not see anybody get 
the least bit drunk or horrid. That night it blew 
a gale and almost everybody got very ill. There 
were two men in my cabin who groaned terribly 
— also worse — so I spent most of the night on 
deck. The night was clear and fresh and warm 
and I had a lovely time. The next day we landed 
at Odessa at four, as I wrote. 

The next morning (there was a reason for 
their saying morgen — in the morning a waiter 
appeared who spoke French) I spent in getting 
my ticket, etc., and went to the bank. There I 
heard about Synge. It is, of course, the worst 
possible news, but it is one of those cases where 
there is nothing to be done, and I have changed 
the poor dear's nam.e to" Spilt Milk." I imagine 



26 LETTERS 

Phil Wrenn also did some swearing about the 
matter. 

In the afternoon I read all the French news- 
papers to be got hold of, but was still in a bad 
temper when I boarded the train at 8:40. In 
the early afternoon I took the idiot guide at the 
hotel and drove all over the city for about two 
hours. On the train I began Dostoievski's " Sou- 
venirs de la Maison des Morts." I do not advise 
you to read it; it is terribly long and dull — a 
defect which Poe was the first notable critic to 
denounce — but with flashes of superhuman gen- 
ius. I think it would take a professional man of 
letters — a broad-minded one — really to enjoy 
the book as it deserves. I know Tourguenieff 
did, and compared many passages to Dante 
— no more transcendant visualization and no 
more horrible scenes in literature. Vogu^ says of 
him that he evokes like Hugo and analyzes like 
Sainte-Beuve; but that is only a small part of 
him. He is a poet and a "little Christ;" he 
understands because he sympathizes with all hu- 
manity. After long dreary pages of the Siberian 
winter at "hard labor" and in the hospital, 
where, amidst dirt and filth, were jammed the 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 27 

sick convicts and those who had been beaten and 
those gone insane, and after a terrible confession 
that a dying convict told him one night while the 
others were sleeping, comes a passage like this: 

" En outre, c'est au printemps, avec le chant 
de la premiere alouette, que la vagabondage 
commence dans tout la Siberie, dans tout la Rus- 
sie: les creatures de Dieu s'evadent des prisons 
et se sauvent dans les forets. Apres la fosse etouf- 
fante, les bagues, les fers, les verges, ils vaga- 
bondent ou bon leur semblent, a I'aventure, ou 
la vie leur semble plus agreable et plus facile; 
ils vivent, et mangent ce qu'ils trouvent au petit 
bonheur, et s'endorment tranquilles la nuit dans 
la foret ou dans un champ, sans souci, sans I'an- 
goisse de la prison, comme les oiseaux du bon 
Dieu, disant bonne nuit aux seules etoiles du ciel, 
sous I'oeil de Dieu." 

Except for Bedier's translation of the old 
"Tristan and Iseut" (which Mother read) and 
certain rare passages in Synge, I know nothing 
in literature that strikes this note. Pardon these 
overflowings, but one more from chapter one, 
"La Maison des Morts:" 

"Notre maison de force se trouvait a Tex- 



28 LETTERS 

tremite de la citadelle , derriere le rempart. Si I'on 
regarde par les fentes de la palissade, esperant 
voir quelque chose — on n'apergoit qu'un petit 
coin de ciel et un haut rempart de terre, convert 
des grandes herbes de la steppe. Nuit et jours, 
des sentinelles s'y promenent en long et en large; 
on se dit alors que des annees entieres s'ecouleront 
et que I'on verra, par la meme fente de palissade, 
toujours le meme rempart, toujours les memes 
sentinelles et le meme petit coin de ciel, non pas 
de celui qui se trouve au-dessus de la prison, mais 
d'un autre ciel, lointain et libre." 

When I got to the hotel I was very dirty and 
unshaved. I spent a couple of hours on my per- 
son and then lunched in the famous restaurant 
where you can have your fish caught. I could 
not get any guide to-day, and it is also a holy 
day and everything is closed — art galleries, etc. 
I arranged for a guide to-morrow — a very re- 
spectable looking old gent, who speaks French 
and can say " Yes, saire" in English. I have been 
walking about the streets and looking at churches, 
etc., and the famous collection of captured can- 
non. There must have been over three hundred 
with Napoleon's proud "N" upon them. It 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 29 

brought "War and Peace" very much to my 
mind; also, for some reason that I cannot ex- 
plain, it made me think, with a shudder, of the 
horde of barbarians suddenly pouring into the 
valley of crucified lions (see " Salammbo ") , per- 
haps on account of my "great man" troubles 
and perhaps too much " Maison des Morts" — 
although I said it was dull, I sat up a great part 
of the night reading it. 
I have taken proper pills. 
With love to Mother, 

Your son, 

Henry 



Moscow^ August 6 , 1912 
Dear Mother: 

I happened to see a Christian calendar yesterday 

in a moment when my mind was working, and 

realized that it was the 5*^ of August already. 

Hence I am leaving Moscow to-night at 8:30 

for Petersburg, and from there I shall come to 

Paris, getting there the 13*^^ or 16^^, at any rate 

before the 17*^. I shall telegraph before leaving 

Petersburg. 

Of all cities I have ever been in I think this 



30 LETTERS 

is my favorite. I should love to get to know it 
better. There is splendor — but no "solid com- 
fort" — just Renan's ideal, and the whole city 
has geist. Most of it is dirty and bedraggled 
looking, but the great gilt domes of the churches 
dominate the view. There are Monte Cristo gar- 
dens, restaurants with wonderfiil food and or- 
chestras, and theatres. More about them anon. 

My guide is a perfect treasure — an old Rus- 
sian of Scotch descent, who was a seaman for 
many years. He seems perfectly honest, though 
greedy. The Kremlin is the great passion of his 
life and we spend every morning there. There 
are about six great churches and monasteries 
there — some of them tiny — all resplendent with 
gold and jewels and icons, the old palace and 
the new one, arsenals, law courts, etc., and the 
Imperial Treasury. 

In the Treasur)^ is the history of the growth of 
the Russian people. Just as you come in you see 
a pile of old guns, banners, arms, etc., in a sort of 
a heap, the remnants of Pugatcheff's rebellion 
against " Empress Chatherine Great," as Lange, 
the guide, calls her. (See Pushkin's " Captain's 
Daughter.") The Swedish banners, sword of 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 31 

Charles the Great, and the chair he was carried 
in from "Dread Pultowa's Day;" hundreds of 
torn, blood-soaked Polish banners, and in an 
iron casket the Constitution of Poland and the 
old keys of Warsaw hanging beneath the Polish 
throne and crown; the amior of Peter the Great 
and all the Imperial Russian standards; wonder- 
ful Persian, Bokharan, Turkish, etc., tributary 
gifts; gifts to the Emperors from the days of Ivan 
down; armor of Boris Godunoff,who killed the 
last of the Ruriks; state carriages of all times and 
all the coronation thrones; armor of Yermak, 
the Cossack outlaw who beat the Tatars and 
whom "Tsar Ivan Terrible" made the chief of 
the Boyars, but who was drowned in a sea-fight 
on the Don; and so on for a long while. Even 
the sword with which Ivan the Terrible killed his 
son ; and a cradle hanging on spears for " Peter 
the Great in his little days;" state bed of Napo- 
leon, and his cannon stacked up about the arsenal. 
In the old palace are the little, small, frescoed 
rooms of Ivan, Catherine, Peter, etc. ; the room 
where Kutuzoff begged Alexander to give up 
Moscow without a shot (see" War and Peace") ; 
the tower where Napoleon watched the burning 



32 LETTERS 

of Moscow. Over a gate in the walls of the Krem- 
lin is a little room where Ivan the Terrible sat 
and watched the building of his cathedral after 
he was excommunicated from the church, and 
from which Peter the Great watched the execu- 
tion of a whole regiment of Boyars who revolted 
against him. They say the whole great square 
was ankle-deep in blood. 

The new palace is very gorgeous and some of 
it in beautiful taste. I could go on to Mesopo- 
tamia. 

The Art Gallery — I have forgotten the name 
of it, but have an English catalogue — is a terri- 
ble and wonderfiil place. Even here " Tsar Ivan 
Terrible" seems to cast his shadow. There are 
many wonderful pictures of him — some melo- 
dramatic and many not. 

On the bottom floor are the Vereshchagins 
— "The War Painter" — hundreds of little pic- 
tures of " what he saw on his travels in India and 
in Bokhara with the conquering army." I think 
his pictures stand with Rodin's sculpture on the 
pinnacle of modern art. Nothing can describe 
his light effects. There is one of the interior of 
an Indian underground prison into the mouth of 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 33 

which the prisoners are lowered. One shaft of 
dim sunlight from the blaze outside shoots down 
on a white-robed prisoner looking up. From that 
one beam you can judge the depth of the hole, 
its putrid smells, its atmosphere, the hot glare up 
above in the open, and from what it shows of the 
prisoners you can feel all the age and mystery 
of Indian civilization. 

My old guide understands these pictures won- 
derftiUy, being absolutely ignorant, just as Tol- 
stoi said they could, and very much, I imagine, 
as the poor Italians of Siena understood the 
Madonna and Angels of their Duccio. 

The war pictures are terrible and yet glorious 
—the "Before the Attack" and the "After the 
Attack" and the "General Somebody Review- 
ing His Troops at Some Famous Pass." You 
will find something of their realism in Kipling's 
"Light That Failed," but little of their philoso- 
phy. His draughtsmanship is as virile and its effect 
as stimulating as Masaccio. I do not think he has 
his tremendous dramatic power, but he was not 
painting an epic and, except for Giotto, who has ? 
He is by all means the chief of the Russian 
painters; he is comparable to Dostoievski and 



34 LETTERS 

Tolstoi. I could not find in the paintings before 
his time, although there was plenty of rude real- 
ism and theories of *^' Art for Life's Sake," any 
Gogol to show him the way. His contemporaries 
are all interesting. I will annotate the catalogue 
to-night so as not to forget them. They have a 
splendid grasp of their own history^ — that of 
the Russian people. 

The Hall of Sculpture was shut up. In the 
other gallery was nothing worthy of mention. 
One good — only fairly so — Rembrandt in hor- 
rible condition. They often show in a separate 
room a large picture and the studies made for it. 
A very good plan. What a chance for students ! 

Last night I went to a place called the " Her- 
mitage Garden." It was one of the most thrilling 
and interesting things I did. It is a huge garden 
— admittance fifty kopecks — with good trees, 
fountains, grass, walks, benches, etc., a very large 
and very good restaurant with an exciting Gipsy 
orchestra and singing, an open air theatre and 
orchestra, a great big band in another place, and 
a large, regular theatre — a good seat five roubles, 
about the same as in America. I went to the the- 
atre and was very much rewarded. They gave 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 35 

an "Operetta" with an amusing, conventional 
plot. Instead of one man writing the music they 
took from everybody — Carmen, Faust, Don 
Giovanni, Parsifal, Fra Diavolo, Lohengrin, 
Gipsy love songs, French and German popular 
songs, and a lot of what must have been Russian. 
There was one bass solo by the villain in a fiiry 
which was so sinister and terrible that it, too, 
goes beside Dostoievski and Vereshchagin. I, of 
course, have no idea what it really was. All the 
chief parts were of the calibre of Lipkowska and 
BaklanofT — the bass was better. The comedy 
old man was splendid, and the soubrette flirted 
with daring and refinement. ''Sophrosone" was 
the motto of the evening — I could write it in 
Greek. 

After the operetta the five voices gave a con- 
cert, each singing three or four songs. A great 
many of them I did not know, but they were 
all very good music and well sung. " Due Fu- 
relle" was one and most were more serious. One 
D ebussy- Verlaine . 

The audience was just the sort that go to sum- 
mer theatres in America and London, and they 
all knew everything and applauded madly, and 



36 LETTERS 

gigantic flowers were brought on, and to the chief 
woman — a very splendid specimen — a very 
large silver vase. Those who turn up their noses 
at Russia would possibly be bored — probably 
by the evening — and would never go to a music 
hall — that is what this corresponds to — for that 
sort of thing. Their great-grandfathers would 
have to be dug up and transplanted to some cli- 
mate where "taste" is a possible growth. In IGrO 
(or 1700?) Abbe Bouhours doubted if Eng- 
land was such a place. 

After that a ballet — dancing not as good as 
P. & M., but bigger chorus and infinitely better 
orchestra, Brahms' Hungarian Rhapsody in G 
Minor, etc. — no Rubinstein. Have been to a 
big church festival. They do not need organs in 
Russia — hence they don't have one. 

Will write more anon. 

Henry 

I must add that in the " Church of the Patri- 
archs" in the Kremlin — a church all covered with 
old Byzantine icons and frescoes — is a head of 
Christ, obviously by some wandering Italian, of 
the Cavalini type (I mean the head of Christ). 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 37 

In front of the (at any rate, a) masterpiece of 
this far-travelling, eager-souled artist of the past 
burns a huge, bedecked and bedizened two rou- 
ble candle to an eager little horse soul that has 
left its unsightly little body, and three tiny one 
kopeck candles in honor of the three goals I made 
from his back. 



St. Petersburg^ August 7, 1912 
Dear Papa: 

I arrived here this morning at 8:30 on a very 
comfortable train. This hotel is very different 
from my dear Slavianski Bazar. It is all filled 
with English, German, and American tourists. 
It is a huge place with a breakfast room (I have 
just breakfasted — about 9:30) where the wait- 
ers wear knee-breeches and pink coats. Breakfast, 
except in your room, is impossible at the Slavi- 
anski before 11:30, and at 1 they ask you if it 
is breakfast or lunch you want. That speaks vol- 
umes as to the diflference between the two places. 
I cannot get a guide here until to-morrow, hence 
this. 

In Moscow, as I think I mentioned, I went to 



38 LETTERS 

the service on Sunday and to the extra service 
for the Empress' birthday. The Church of St. 
Saviour is the biggest one in Russia and was 
packed with people. It is decorated with modern 
paintings of great merit — most by Vereshchagin 
— not the "War Painter" or even any relation. 
The great dome is a wonderful piece of " dome 
technique" — a very difficult thing to manage. 
Correggio's true claim to supremacy lies in that. 
The colors are also good, and for a marvel un- 
sentimental even in the robes of the Madonnas. 
There were a number of deacons in cloth of 
silver and gold mixed ; they were mostly old and 
silver-headed. The archdeacon was all bushy 
black beard and long, curly hair, very thick. He 
wore a surplice of cloth of gold, and from the 
way he walked — about six foot three or four 
— I think he had nothing on underneath. Mary 
Garden is the only other human that can walk 
that way. All tigers do and some bulls, Black 
Anguses and Herefords. The doors of the high 
altar opened and out he walked with nothing on 
his head, looking like the arch priest of Baal 
Devorateur among the shaven priests of Artemis 
(see "Salammbo"), and turned his face to the 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 39 

altar and began to intone. He went up a whole 
note or more at the end of each verse, growing 
louder and louder. He put his head back and his 
hands on his breast and threw his voice up into 
the dome, catching the echo just as it came back 
and always rising in speed, volume, and register. 
He ended in clear, ringing baritone and a boy 
choir took it up, beginning in tenor, going to 
boy alto, and ending in shrill boy soprano. No 
Jehovah could sleep long or dally at the chase 
if called upon in such a way. The bishop then 
appeared. He wore a surplice of cloth of gold, 
chasuble of plaited strands of gold — all stiff and 
catching the light — a mitre of gold set with dia- 
monds, and a huge ruby on the top. The arch- 
deacon looked at him — I suspect contemptuously 
— and walked in with his wonderflil walk. The 
bishop represented the New Testament, and was 
dull and sweet and shaky-voiced and set no 
echoes ringing or hearts beating. 

In the afternoon I went to " Sparrow Hill," 
where " Sparrow," the robber who foiled Ivan 
the Terrible, had his lair. Ivan once captured 
two of his chief men and ordered them to be 
executed. "Sparrow" came down into the city^ 



40 LETTERS 

caught and killed his chief Boyar, and put on his 
robes. Then he entered the palace — the guards 
bowing before him — and ordered the men set 
free and took them off with him. He was the only 
man in all Russia that Ivan could never quell. 
Now " Sparrow Hill" is a Sunday resort with a 
big restaurant and singing and balalaika-playing 
by men. There are splendid trees and a good 
view of the city and river. 

In the afternoon of Monday I went to the 
horse races, which were very brilliant and ex- 
citing. I had sufficient sense not to bet a cent. 
Monday night I went to the Hermitage Gar- 
den, which I described. Nothing can describe the 
clear, warm, bracing, pale nights that they have 
in Russia — same in Odessa, and even more so 
in St. Petersburg, I am told. 

Yesterday my guide came down to the train 
with me and we had a very touching parting. 
I was truly fond of him. He liked me because I 
responded to his Kremlin and his paintings. He 
said one thing that I think Berenson would have 
kissed him for. We were in a very second-rate 
collection of French and Dutch paintings, and 
he turned to me with disgust and said : '*" Can you 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 41 

tell me now, Mr. Famsworth, what these people 
go paying away good money for these paintings 
for ? I can't see anything in them at all, but when 
I'm looking at Vereshchagin I can see every- 
thing. You can even make a guess at how much 
the queer looking guns the Bokharans use weigh, 
and you can see the men sitting in their sad- 
dles and standing in their stirrups and squatting 
down in their little stinking shops and churches." 
I told him that that was the very essence of 
painting — he had no eyes for color, so we did 
not go into that, neither did the early Florentines 
and the Aristotelians — and Berenson agreed 
with him about liking to see men really standing 
and sitting. 

When I asked him what he thought of some 
of the Byzantine paintings he replied that he 
supposed they had been painted by very holy 
men and that they were very old. He was per- 
fectly sincere about all this, and used to come into 
my room in the morning and get me through 
with my breakfast quickly so as to be out and 
seeing. If I ordered him at eleven, he would 
turn up about half-past nine and ask me if I was 
not ready for breakfast. If I ordered Nissim at 



42 LETTERS 

eleven, he would swear nothing was open until 
twelve and grumble horribly. 

I mean to go and telegraph right now. 
Love to the proper people, 

Your son, 

Henry 



LETTERS HOME 

October, 1914, to September, 1915 



On board U. S. M. S. Philadelphia^ 
New Vorky October 5 , 1914 
Dear Mother: 

I HAVE only time tosaythat I am in a hurry. 
My passport was held up in Washington and 
I have had a fearful time getting one. 

With best of wishes for the McGibbon horse. 

Your son, 

Henry 



London, October 13, 1914 
Dear Papa: 

I have just left Wilkes, and am to meet him for 
dinner later on. As I have not succeeded in mak- 
ing any definite plans yet, the first mentioned is 
the only thing that I have done so far. However, 
I have many irons in the fire, and expect by 
to-morrow evening, or next day at the latest, to 
have made a start in some direction. 

In the boat I fell in with a young man com- 
ing from British Columbia to rejoin his old regi- 
ment, the Grenadier Guards. I became im- 
mensely intimate with him from the first, and 
he is anxious to have me enlist. I don't want to 



46 LETTERS 

enlist any way, and know that you don't want to 
have me, and furthermore, I don't think it is pos- 
sible, and so do not think there is much chance. 

Griswood, the man I spoke of, used to be 
a captain, and is to bring over a raw company 
after about two or three weeks' drilling, or so his 
colonel wrote him, and if he can put me in that 
company, I might go with him. He is a very 
attractive fellow and I am more or less fond of 
him. I had dinner with him last night, and from 
the way head- waiters, etc., snooped about, I 
imagine that he used to be the devil of a swell. 
That is one iron. 

Wilkes thinks that I might go to the front on 
a motor bicycle and act as errand boy. He sug- 
gested the idea and has evidently had it on his 
mind, as he knows all the details. We will find 
out about that to-morrow. The idea naturally ap- 
peals strongly to me, and particularly as he says 
that if taken, I should probably be put with the 
Indian Brigade. I will write you more about 
things when the matter is settled one way or the 
other. There would, of course, be a certain amount 
of danger in the work, but nothing very desper- 
ate, and in no possible way could I see more of 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 47 

the war. One difficulty is my inaptitude in the 
matter of mechanics, but I know enough to throw 
a good bluff, and Wilkes says that as such men 
are needed, there will in all probability be no 
very searching tests. 

If that idea falls through, I shall see the 
people I have letters to, and take the first boat 
to Ostend, if still open. The siege there ought to 
make good material, and I may be able to get 
some photos and do the regular magazine article. 

As for conditions here, they are much as re- 
ported — very dark in the streets at night, and 
plenty of people about as late as eleven ; restau- 
rants and theatres open, but neither crowded. It 
is surprising how much French you hear spoken 
eveiywhere. Belgian refugees are arriving con- 
stantly, and all the shops have big red exhorta- 
tions to the young men of England to enlist posted 
everywhere. Extras are coming out every hour 
and red and green posters advertise the extras, 
but it is all done in the calm way that the English 
do such things. You don't hear any more war 
talk than you do in Boston, not as much, in fact. 
The Germans are hated with a bitter and last- 
ing hatred. Wilkes, for instance, talks about them 



48 LETTERS 

in a very bloodthirsty way. He does not seem 

very keen about the Russians either, but then, he 

never did. Gold is very scarce, and there is paper 

money for ten shillings and pounds. 

With much love to Mother and Ellen. 

Your son, 

Henry 



Hotel Continental^ Paris^ 
October 19, 1914 
Dear Mamma: 

I arrived here on Saturday night, after leaving 
London at 10 a.m. Strange to say, the boat, 
Folkestone- Dieppe, was so crowded that many 
had to stand. However, trains, luggage, etc., are 
all in perfect order. I suppose that the crowd 
was because Ostend and Calais routes are not 
running. 

I picked up several French men and women, 
and several had been over to England to buy 
heavy clothes, etc., for the soldiers. They had 
found the same shortage there, but report fac- 
tories running like mad. 

I did not see any one who took the war in the 
almost hysterical way some members of Espe- 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 49 

ranza used to. Even the Belgians are cheerful and 
practical. I think you will find more hatred felt 
and expressed in England than on the Continent. 
Also, strange to say, there are more alarmists, 
and rumors of Zeppelin raids, etc., worthy of 
Mexico are handed about in the Mexican fash- 
ion, with lowered voices. 

I picked up a Welsh captain of the Second 
Ghurkas now in France, who had been detained 
much to his rage by the General Staff. It was 
his pleasant duty to dash about music halls, etc., 
and arrest any drunken officers he might find. 
He told me that the night before he had done 
the bravest action of his life, and run in a major. 
I noticed he had the South Afi'ican D. S. O. 
medal and also the Indian Northwest Frontier 
medal. He said himself that he was an officer 
and considered himself a gentleman, and not a 
policeman. 

He let drop one bit of information which I 
had suspected before, namely, that while waiting 
to report himself one morning at headquarters, 
he had had a glimpse of the map, and that the 
English position was far stronger than reported. 
I asked him if he wanted to elucidate, and he 



50 LETTERS 

said he did not, but again assured me that that 
was the fact. I think myself that there are at 
least twice as many British troops at the front as 
are reported there. 

Paris can best be pictured by saying it is like 
London in time of peace on Sunday afternoon 
at three o'clock, the only difference being that 
you see no young men about. That is the gen- 
eral atmosphere of the place. 

I spent six solid hours walking the streets on 
both sides of the Seine, and finally lunched at 
a half-swell restaurant on Boulevard Capucines. 
It was that or the one lower. There was a fair 
scattering of bourgeois and bourgeoises and off- 
spring, and by choosing a strategic table, I was 
able to eavesdrop on three sides. Some were dis- 
cussing the morning papers, but most was mere 
chatter, such as only Zola truly appreciates. An 
English and French soldier came in together in 
full campaign kit, — Englishman with rifle, can- 
teen, knapsack, etc.. Frenchman of the light cav- 
alry, with a big leather-sheathed sabre. He was 
limping and obviously a convalescent. A reporter 
came in and took a few notes from them, but 
otherwise they did not attract very much more 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 51 

attention than the same sight would in Constan- 
tinople or Mexico City. They seemed the very 
best of friends, although the Frenchman knew 
very little English and the other only his native 
tongue. 

At another cafe three Belgian officers were 
sitting and a Belgian refugee in chauffeur's cos- 
tume came up, and after a smart military salute, 
asked the way to the Belgian consulate. He said 
he had come on a bicycle from Boulogne. After 
he had gone one of the officers said, '"'' II faut 
avoir du courage pour fair e ca^'' and the others 
agreed and dropped the subject. 

In walking around the streets you would not 
notice much war-time excitement. The majority 
of the shops are closed, and often on a red, white, 
and blue poster about eight inches square it tells 
how many of the owners and workers are at the 
war. Also a good many of the round advertising 
columns that stand on all avenues and boulevards 
are now covered with red, white, and blue stripes 
and " Reserved for military advertising." Natu- 
rally there is none of the continual advertising 
for enlistment that so covers London. 

While walking, several aeroplanes passed 



52 LETTERS 

overhead and a good many on the streets looked 
up at them. On all sides you could hear the people 
saying, " C^est un Francais; les Taubes ne vien- 
nent plusP Once while in the rue Francs Bour- 
geois one passed directly overhead and an old 
woman dashed cackling into a doorway. Her 
husband yanked her out with foul names and 
made her walk with him in the middle of the 
street. 

At night the Boule' Miche' is fairly crowded 
and much as usual. There is a thin sprinkling of 
soldiers, both English and French, but as far as 
I could see, they were behaving very well. Auto- 
taxis are still plentiful, but regular motors are 
very scarce and then either on Red Cross duty 
or carrying soldiers. There are no motor buses. 
The streets are not quite as dark as in London, 
and as in London, the sky is swept in all direc- 
tions by big searchlights. One beam will some- 
times follow a cloud for ten minutes at a time 
and then pass on. By nine most of the places are 
closed everywhere. I believe that some of the 
devotees still carry on a night-life somewhere, 
but it is not in evidence, and by ten the streets 
are as deserted as those of Boston at one. Some 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 5 3 

of the movies run till midnight, mostly carry- 
ing war films. All the regular theatres are closed, 
but the Folies Bergeres and a few others run 
movies. 

I have not seen about the facilities for getting 
to Rome and Constantinople as yet. I am going 
now to the embassy to see if I can make a visit 
to the battlefield of the Marne. They say it is 
very interesting. 

Yourj^/5, 

Henry 



Cafe Terminus^ Paris^ 
October 30, 1914 
Dear Papa: 

Since my last my plans have indeed suflfered a 
sea-change. As you say Metcalf predicted, I 
found that there was no direct route to Russia, 
owing to the closing of the Dardanelles. I still 
think it would be possible to get there by way 
of Switzerland, Austria, Rumania, etc., but it is 
not sure and would be very expensive. Also, while 
I was casting about and finding out what I could 
about travel in Austria, I met a man by the name 
of Bles, who is forming a corps of volunteer 



54 LETTERS 

scouts, which he thinks will in time form part of 
the division at present being raised by Colonel 
Kitchener ( brother of the big one) , which is to 
join the Belgian army. 

This Bles is a very interesting man. He com- 
manded a similar troop in the South African 
campaign and also in Alaska, when there was 
a fight with the Indians there. He has also shot 
considerable big game, prospected, etc. Also, 
unlike most of such people, he is a man of letters 
and knows a good deal of art and music. For 
the last seven years he has lived here, and writes 
in various magazines. He is also an authority on 
aeroplanes (not rich enough to practise) , and on 
jiu-jitsu and other Japanese sports; also Japan- 
ese metal work and pottery. As might be sup- 
posed, I have taken a great liking to him, and 
have formed one of the friendships that I seem 
to fall into in foreign parts. 

I have not yet enlisted in his corps, but I go 
lo drill regularly twice a day, 8:30 to 12:30 and 
2:30 to 5:30. The whole thing is as picturesque as 
possible. The daily procedure is as follows: Bles, 
very smart in English officer's uniform, modi- 
fied with some Canadian details that he considers 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 5 5 

more practical, calls to order at 8:30 sharp. There 
are sixty in the squadron, but twenty-four is the 
usual number present. We have men from South 
Africa, Trinidad, Argentine, Belgium, Switzer- 
land, Canada, United States, Honduras, Java, 
England, France, the Caucasus, and Malta. The 
four non-commissioned officers are Francotte, a 
Belgian of forty- five, who is not strong enough 
to work in his own infantry; Kyros, an Argen- 
tine rancher, twenty-two years of age; Messelie, 
a man of unknown nationality, ex of the Trini- 
dad Light Horse; and myself. We meet in a 
riding school and do manoeuvres on foot, each 
one of the brigadiers taking command in turn. 

I have learned to put the six sections through 
the most complicated manoeuvres, advancing in 
open order, forming triangular formation, form- 
ing squares, and all that sort of thing. Also I 
have learned to get my commands out smartly 
and to correct any one that makes a mistake. 

After that Bles takes command and puts us 
through the English cavalry sabre drill. Then we 
have a class in signalling, semaphore, and exam- 
ination in Morse code signalling. Same thing re- 
peated in the afternoon. The sabre drill, which 



56 LETTERS 

we now do at fiill speed, is very violent exercise, 
and hence I am in splendid condition. Also, I 
have worked harder over this thing than any- 
thing I have ever done. It is no simple thing to 
learn to manoeuvre men, the Morse telegraph 
code, the international semaphore signals, and 
a pile of guides to range- finding, all in a week ! 
I have been working twelve hours a day and 
very hard. Also, all that information is worth 
having. 

I as yet don't know whether I will definitely 
join or not. If you don't want me to, write and 
say so. I have told Bles that I will abide by your 
decision. Of course I could see the war with the 
corps better than in any other way imaginable. 
Part of our duty is to be despatch riders, and 
thus we would not be confined to one narrow 
field of action. As for danger, it would exist, but 
not nearly in so great a degree as for the regular 
troops. Practically negligible, in fact. 

Bles has promised to make me lieutenant as 
soon as the thing is really crystallized and I 
formally enlist. I do hope you won't think the 
thing too risky. I have an inward conviction that 
I should never be touched. Also I have a great 



HENRY FARNSWORTH si 

admiration for Bles. He can keep his temper in 
exasperating moments, keep cheerful and busi- 
nesslike when everything seems going wrong, 
and make the most of any little opportunity that 
offers, more than any man I have ever met. In- 
cidentally he can get more hard work on deadly 
stupid things out of me than anybody hitherto 
encountered. As for expenses, I shall have to 
buy my uniform and that is all. Bles expects to 
leave in a month or six weeks. 

I shall write more anon. I could write a 
volume on Bles' "Light Horse." With love to 
Mother, as ever, 

Henry 



Boulevard St. Germain^ Paris ^ 
November 1 , 1914 
Dear Mamma : 

I am now installed in a lodging, 22, rue de 
Somerrand, that is to say, abaft of the rear of 
the Musee Cluny, and can from the bathtub 
overlook the garden in front of the Musee, 
which will show that my position is a very stra- 
tegic one for the fostering of the ideals that a 
student in Paris should have. I use the word 



58 LETTERS 

"student" with conscious pride, for I am now 
studying war quite as hard as any Balzac hero 
ever studied politics or art. 

I have written the Da a lengthy account of 
the facts of the case, but there was so much to 
be said that I could do no more than summarize 
and hence probably gave no real conception of 
my doings. I also think that I overdid the grind 
of it all, for though the hours are long and hard, 
I enjoy most of the work. 

I have picked up particular friendship with 
Bles, as previously described, Francotte, a Bel- 
gian garde civique^ and one of our corporals, 
and with a strange being named Burger. This 
last is by a Dutch officer out of a Javanese 
woman in Batavia and married to a Russian 
wife. He is incredibly long, thin, and pale, with a 
little worm-eaten moustache and hollow, mourn- 
ful eyes. He wears a pair of rough cowhide boots 
with ordinary ill-cut trousers tucked into them. 
The coat buttons right up to the chin. He is a 
doctor of psychology by profession, and speaks 
French, Dutch, English, Swiss patois, Italian, 
German, Danish, and Russian ! Also some kind 
of Hindu, " one or two Malay dialects," and 



I 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 59 

a little Japanese. He is to be our hospital corps. 
He has an attractive apartment up on top of 
Mont Rouge and seems thoroughly well known 
in the entire Latin Quarter. He does not do the 
drill, but usually comes to the afternoon session 
to look for progress. At my first appearance he 
came up to me and asked if I had not been living 
at Hadem Keui during the battle of Tchatalja. 
It turns out that he had been working with the 
Turkish ambulance corps at the same time and 
had recognized me. He is an old acquaintance 
of Bles, and we three have dined together four 
times, twice with BQrger, once with Bles, at their 
homes, and once with me at the Cafe Restaurant 
de la Sorbonne — very picturesque occasions, 
Bles in uniform with sundry campaign medals 
and some kind of a decoration, Burger as de- 
scribed, smoking a Dutch pipe, and myself as 
usual in an old suit which I keep pressed to 
please Bles, who takes the queer clothes of his 
troop to heart. We talk almost entirely war, 
and Bles and I expand on the beauties of the 
U. S. M. C. Burger on the first day I saw him 
prophesied that the Germans would force Tur- 
key's hand, and furthermore that, rather than 



60 LETTERS 

lose Constantinople, they would declare Holy 
War, and that Egypt, most of the rest of 
Africa, certain districts of the Punjab, all Af- 
ghanistan, the bulk of Persia, Samarcand, Dzun- 
garia, Moro, and such places would follow suit. 
Bles scoffs at this, and I am in your habitual posi- 
tion of believing both sides possible and seeking 
the truth. 

There is also endless discussion and chart- 
drawing of various methods of entrenchments 
and the use of light artillery, the Creusot 75 and 
the mitrailleuse. The news from the front here is 
so vague that there is not much use in discuss- 
ing it. 

This place is out of paper and I must close. 

With love to all, 

Your^/.9, 

Henry 



Cafe de Rohan^ 
1 , Place du Palais Royal^ 
November 3 , 1914 
Dear Papa: 

I drew £30 this morning, and am writing this 
lest you should worry as to what I am doing. 



HENRY FA RNS WORTH 61 

I still have the ^200 in gold and did not need 
this money for immediate expenses, but I drew 
£20 on Wednesday a week ago. I wanted this 
money to put up as a deposit for a horse which 
I have hired to practise sabre and other exer- 
cises on. The owner lives and has his stables in 
Neuilly, and as I wanted the horse in the Manege 
Monceau, rue de Toqueville, he insisted on a de- 
posit of 700 francs. As he insisted on the deposit, 
I made him put the money in the bank in such a 
way that he can only get it out with my signa- 
ture. Besides the deposit, I agreed to pay for its 
keep and give him a louis a week. I don't think 
that is extravagant. 

I do this in the distinguished company of 
Comte de Montmort and a certain Tollendhor 
de Balsch, both of Bles' troop, and we sabre- 
practise on horseback regularly for an hour every 
noon. Both the others are first-class fencers, but 
I have the advantage of them in riding and horse- 
manship. Bles says that on foot I am hopeless, 
but mounted, a very good opponent. My forte 
is attack and defence on the nigh side. Polo has 
been a great aid in getting a long reach and hard 
thrust on that side. If I can get either of the 



62 LETTERS 

others on their nigh side, I can touch the horse 
either cut or thrust, and nearly ahvays the leg of 
the man. 

As I am about to write Mother now, in an- 
swer to hers of October 2, 

Yours as ever, 

Henry 



Cafe de Rohan ^ Paris, 
1 , Place du Palais Royal, 

November 6, 1914 
Dear Mamma: 

I am interested in what you say of the good work 
of Mr. Norton. I called on him on the lO'^'^ or 
12*^^ of October in Burne- Jones ' house and found 
him out, but was received by a very pretty house- 
keeper. At that time, according to her, he had 
not got any automobiles as far as the Conti- 
nent, but expected to some time in the next few 
days. By skilful questioning it appeared that he 
was entangled with British red tape and I lost in- 
terest fast. Dill Starr, of Groton-St. Mark's fame, 
is one of his bearers. As to the St. Bernard- 
like rescue of sufferers on the battlefield, I have 
also a screed of disillusion. In the English army, 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 63 

as in all civilized armies, the hospital corps and 
the sanitary corps is an important and large 
factor. They work on the actual firing line, res- 
cue the wounded, administer the first aid to the 
wounded, and tag the wound with a special tag, 
telling its nature and severity. Then they turn 
their cases over to the, as you may say, amateur 
Red Cross, who hover behind the lines and run 
base and field hospitals. Being within sound of 
the guns, and seeing occasionally some wild shell 
explode, might by an ignorant enthusiast, partic- 
ularly a woman, be taken for actual fighting, and 
I don't doubt that many articles will appear, 
written fiom this standpoint. 

Anybody who really knows, will immediately 
see the difference between such thrilling scenes 
and those that take place in the trenches and 
ahead of them. 

M}^ point is that if Bles can put through his 
idea, I would with him really see the war and 
that not from one narrowly restricted field. Every 
man in our troop knows at least two languages, 
and has learned to send cipher despatches in two 
or more languages, which even an expert crypto- 
gram reader would have difficulty in making out. 



64 LETTERS 

Also we all know the different signalling systems 
thoroughly, and each man is well educated and 
intelligent. 

Our ambition is to serve as scouts — the 
French word eclaireurs is better — and also 
as despatch-bearers. We would not be in the 
trenches, but we would be collectors of informa- 
tion ahead of the trenches ; really about the same 
thing as Uhlans. 

You see the difference, don't you, between Bles' 
Horse and Norton's Red Cross? I shall know 
definitely in two weeks if Bles can achieve his 
desires. If he can't, I am no worse off for the 
information gained and can still go about my 
original plans. 

I have not yet finished Cramb,but can see how 

well written it is. I don't see why it makes the 

Germans any more understandable to you. It, 

as far as I have gone, draws them as maddened 

and blinded by jealousy. I wish Cramb could 

have lived to read how the English and French 

are fighting. 

With much love, 

Henry 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 65 

Cafe Universal^ 
Puerta del Sol, Madrid, 

November 13, 1914 
Dear Ellen: 

Bles has gone to London to see if he can hurry 
things along at the War Office. I know he can't, 
because until Kitchener's million is complete, 
nothing else will be done at the War Office. 

So in disgust with mankind in general, I came 
down here with one of our hope-to-be officers, 
Christobal Bernaldo de Quyros by name, a son 
of the Marquis de St. Yago tous qu^il y a deplus 
grand d''Espagne. I thought he was Argentine, 
because he said he came from there, but here on 
his own dunghill he turns out to be a terrific 
swell. 

Last night we dined with Brother Antonio in 
his lodging. Christobal is still in bed, hence I am 
here gathering local color and about to go to 
the Museum. The old father is out in the coun- 
try somewhere, so Christobal and I are staying 
at the Madrid Palace Hotel, the sort of place 

the B family would have revelled in ten 

years ago. Fancy cooking that tastes as if done 
by a machine, and quantities of over-liveried 



66 LETTERS 

supercilious flunkeys. As we are living together 
in the cheapest habitable room, it may explain 
the superciliousness. 

I am disgusted with Madrid as a city. The 
Q,u^'ros family are delightful, simple, travelled, 
hospitable, and just as you would expect them 
to be; but the city — no. If you came here, you 
might rave of the picturesque, but compared to 
Havana, all smothered in tropiail palms, or 
Mexico, with its zeraped peons, distant moun- 
tains, and air of tragedy and bullet-marked 
walls, this is all flat enough. Also it lacks the 
charm of Paris. There is indeed a park with 
trees all vellow with autumn, and green grass 
and the like, but Chapultepec with its gardens, 
dungeons, and thousand year old trees, or the 
Alameda, with thick pastoral shade and blind- 
ing tropical glare and splashing fountains, makes 
all this seem pale. There are, of course, plenty 
of faces that might be by Murillo or Velasquez, 
even some Goyas, but the same are in other 
places, and here there are no fierce-looking rag- 
ged soldiers or thin Egyptian-faced Aztecs. 

Also it is cold, and I am really thinking of 
nothing but the war and devising means to get 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 67 

to it. Last night I sat up late writing a sort of 
memoir of interesting things and places I have 
seen. This morning it seemed not in the least like 
anything I ever saw in print, but nevertheless of 
a certain merit. I mean to go to Barcelona soon 
and finish it there. It passes the time while wait- 
ing to hear from Bles. And if I can make any- 
thing out of it, it may please the Da or the Ma. 
While on the train a really hideous thing 
occurred to me, namely, that after having been 
dined and lunched and well treated generally by 
Wilkins, I then met a friend in London, — I 
don't know if I wrote you about him, Walter 
Pierce, painter, whom I enjoyed infinitely, — and 
thereafter never thought again of Wilkins until 
a few nights ago. You can do amthing with Wil- 
kins. For God's sake, write him and let him know 
that I did not mean to be rude, and that I know 
he was more than really polite to the Da's son, 
and that I feel like a wonn ! I don't myself see 
how the thing can be explained, but if you can 
do anything, do it, for the love of God! 

I dreamt the other night that Lee and I had 
a long and intelligent conversation, what about 
I don't remember, except that in a general way 



68 LETTERS 

I told him to write down every morning what 

he dreamt the night before, because who knows 

what children dream about, or from what they 

draw the necessary experience? 

I got that all from the Javanese psychologist. 

Au revoir. 

With love, 

Henry 



Puerta de Sol, Madrid, 

November 13, 1914 
Dear Mamma: 

I have just passed three hours in the gallery here. 
May we both live to spend one day in this city 
together ! On every side some master line, some 
color to ravish the eye and enlarge the mind; 
nothing to blemish and everything to uplift. The 
still, serene conceptions of the Old Masters is 
the only atmosphere. A hall of Goya, — not the 
Goya of the prints, the child of hell, but Goya 
the master, full of life and color and line, but yet 
serene. Then a long gallery of Titian, Tintoretto, 
Rubens, Vandyke, and one or two others, a big 
round room of Velasquez, all alone and always 
at his best, a hall of Murillo, as I have never seen 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 69 

him before, a hall of portraits, and that is all. 
There is nothing else like it in all this world ! You 
can look up in some modem Baedeker or some- 
thing and get the list of pictures. I can't describe 
them, except to say that to many it has been 
given to paint Christ, but to paint the spirit of 
Golgotha, to Velasquez alone. Titian and Tinto- 
retto also I never understood before. There is a 
series, Moses in the Bulrushes, Judith and Holo- 
fernes, Esther and Ahasuerus, Queen of Sheba 
and Solomon, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, by 
Tintoretto, all small, and all more ravishing than 
Botticelli's Venus and Mars. It all makes me feel 
like a brand saved from the burning. It seems as 
though for two years past I have been follow- 
ing false gods, or rather devils, and following on 
the nervous in art. I could give my soul now to 
hear Jaques Thibaud playing that " Chaconne" 
of Bach's again. I feel as though I had been a 
long way under ground and had at last come 
back to the true light again. Nothing is more 
abhorrent to me just now than anything that 
smacks of nerves. I hope it will be given to me 
to keep the distinction between devil's art and 
God's art clear in the fliture. Rodin's " Penseur," 



70 LETTERS 

which of late I have spent much time before, now 
looks to me like Satan himself! 
To-morrow I go to Barcelona. 

Love to the Da, 

Henry 

Cafe de Paris ^ Barcelona^ 
November 21, 1914 
Dear Ellen: 

There is a howling gale outside and quantities 
of fine rain, and yet warm, and smelling like the 
first of our spring storms at home. I have been 
waiting here a week, and this morning received 
a wire from Bles saying that he hoped to fix 
matters with the Belgians in two weeks' time. 
I suppose that means he has failed in London. 
It all makes me feel criminal, sitting here an ab- 
solute y^i/zra/z^ and spending my evenings at the 
inevitable Jockey Club that exists in all Span- 
ish-speaking cities. 

I suppose you, too, have read Cramb on Ger- 
many. It is the best written historical pamphlet 
I ever read. It makes me in a way admire the 
Germans, and yet I want to fight them for other 
reasons than mere love of excitement. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 71 

This is really a loathsome town, lazy, and 
without art. Also, it is impossible to buy a book 
in English or French that is worth reading. I am 
ploughing through a tome on Alaric that pur- 
ports to be a novel, written by a professor of 
psychology who wants to become an artist in his 
dotage. It is very learned, but does nothing but 
remind me of the huge pictures in " Salammbo." 
A bona Jide inspiration is the only excuse for 
writing a book, or any artistic effort, for that 
matter. 

I went to "Mignon" at the opera here, and 
the orchestra was led by a little man who felt the 
music, but drowned the voices. I went with the 
Italian consul here, whom I met at the Club, and 
we talked music until two. He knows nothing 
but his own national style and a bit of French. 
Beethoven, Brahms, and Franck are closed to 
him. Still, it was a slight comfort. 

This town is surrounded with wild miniature 
mountains, and Varrichotti, the Italian, and my- 
self took horses and spent a day among them. 
Coming home we stopped at a peasant's house 
and drank some wine in a room all dark, except 
for a huge fire. It was so fascinating that we 



72 LETTERS 

stayed until it was pitch dark. The trails down to 
the city are very rough and Varrichotti was ter- 
rified. This for some reason elated me and I took 
the lead at a jog-trot, slipping and stumbling 
and sending stones rolling over the edge into the 
dark. I got one fall, but fortunately on a broad 
place, and the horse was not marked. Varrichotti 
was so far behind that he did not catch on. I 
was in a mood when I would have gone over the 
edge without a quiver. 

That night I saw Velasquez's "Crucifixion" 
in a dream, and ever since have been wanting to 
start a novel. I could think of countless things to 
say, and even a beginning, but no plot. I have 
decided to take a leaf fi-om the "Idiot" and to 
go ahead and write what is in me, and not try to 
force things or to consider what the public wants. 

I feel so dishonest waiting here, when the Da 
sent me to the war, so much so that I don't dare 
write home. Add to that that I have lost, or did, 
rather, in one sitting, ;^ 150 at baccarat, and you 
will imagine how contemptible I feel! 

De Quyros of Madrid gave me a letter to 
a swine here who put me up at this Club — the 
Jockey Club, not this cafe — it is now only 10a.m. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 73 

and Barcelona is still asleep — and he pro- 
posed joining the game. After dining me very 
nicely, he, being very simple in his manners, as 
are most chic Spaniards according to my experi- 
ence, tried to get me away from the table, but 
after a few losses, I am always like the proverbial 
fool. I have not been into the baccarat room since 
and shall not go again, but that does not palliate 
in the least. I shall write to the Da and tell him, 
because it is only honest, and yet I know that 
it will give him pain. I hope your little Lee will 
never turn out such a fool. I seem bound to be 
a thorn in the Da's side, and yet God knows 
I wish otherwise. 

I have decided to go to Palma de Mallorca 
and wait there for two weeks, then, if I hear 
nothing from Bles, I shall make a stab at the 
Red Cross, and if that fails, join the Legion. 
That will, at any rate, stop expenses. 

In the meantime, it is a comfort to hear that 
Adam is a success. I suppose it 's my fault that 
a sort of gloom hangs, or seems to me to, over 
Dedham. What is worse, I at bottom don't think 
it is all my fault. 

If they would only ask some definite thing of 



74 LETTERS 

me, I would do it cheerfully and feel at rest. 
Also once at rest, I knoxv I could write what I 
want to, and doing already what was wanted, 
would not have to worry about whether it suc- 
ceeded or not. If you can give me any sugges- 
tions, do it, and "lay on, Macduff!" 

Love, 

Henry 



Grand Holel^ Palma de Mallorca^ 
November 26, 1914 
Dear Mamma: 

I arrived here this morning, for reasons which 
I wrote Ellen two or three days ago, and won't 
rehash here. If curious, it will be a fund for you 
to write and ask her. 

I have been reading more or less about the 
island and it is really a most interesting place. As 
long as I can't get to the war, I am better off here 
than in Paris, or at least I think so. I caught a 
fearflil cold in Barcelona and was so miserable 
on the boat last night that I fully expected to 
have typhoid; about two hundred per day are 
dying of it in Barcelona ! However, a long walk 
in the hills here this morning has put me in 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 7S 

good shape again and I feel no more typhoid 
symptoms. 

The town is rather large, but scattered, and 
very simple, quiet, and picturesque. There is one 
beautiful cathedral, and some attractive ruins of 
a castle in the offing. I believe there are some 
twenty castles in the island, some very handsome 
and even inhabited. I mean to go to a small 
town, Sollaire, on the other side of the island, 
and live there until Bles definitely makes up his 
mind if he can do anything or not. After that 
I shall try Norton's or somebody else's Red 
Cross. The closing of the Dardanelles has put 
an end to my first scheme. 

In Barcelona I picked up a German and an 
Austrian, — there are a lot of them there, try- 
ing to get to their respective araiies, — and by a 
great display of tact, managed to become fairly 
intimate, especially with the Austrian. I think 
Cramb is absolutely right in his diagnosis. The 
only thing I differ with him in is calling the Ger- 
mans the most great-minded, as well as the 
greatest, of England's foes. Mad with envy is 
how they strike me. At the expression " English 
Channel" they froth at the mouth. I imagine 



76 LETTERS 

that on the battlefield their courage and patriot- 
ism is no greater than that of any of the other 
nations involved. 

Owing to my jumping around so, I have not 
heard a word from home for three weeks, but 
expect shortly a large pile of letters. 

I will write again shortly and let you know 
what my plans are, when more matured. As 
usual, I am ashamed to say, I have a half-baked 
literary project on hand, and that is really what 
I came here for. 



Love to the Da. 



Yours, 

Henry 



Palma de Mallorca 



December 2 , 1914 
Dear Mamma: 

It occurred to me just now that even though 

I was not doing anything very heroic here in 

Palma, I might at any rate write home and tell 

you so. I have changed hotels and am now 

in the villa, so-called, of the one from which I 

last wrote. It is a little place of some seventeen 

rooms, perched on the cliffs across the harbor 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 77 

from the main town. It is all very beautiful and 
calm and picturesque. Also it's the cheapest place 
I ever got into, and that is why I stay. 

I advise you to look up Mallorca in the " Bri- 
tannica." I have read up on it a bit and it is 
all very interesting. The little huddled town and 
the cathedral rising like a crag out of the sea, 
the harbor fliU of fishing-boats, lateen sails, and 
the stern mediaeval castle of Belver facing the 
cathedral from the heights on this side, all make 
the Middle Ages seem near and fresh. As long 
as the sun is out, it is really warm, and at nights 
it is very cold. 

I am having more success with my writing 
than ever before. That's another fundamental 
reason for my stop here. I really do think I shall 
be able to finish an actual novel and have it go 
more or less the way I want it (which is a new 
departure in my field) . It seems to me as though 
my experience in the Prado museum might bear 
finit. It is the fourth organized attempt to write on 
the same subject. Three have in various past times 
been torn up. This time things move slowly, but 
with no nervous wear and tear. Every day I 
get things clearer in mind. 



78 LETTERS 

The only other lodger here is a little French 
reforme^ trying to get his chest up to standard 
measurement. I detest him, and hence have no 
distractions. 

My programme — rise at 7 and walk on my 
veranda while the sun rises, and admire the ca- 
thedral until there begins to be fair warmth in the 
sun, then read over yesterday's writings, change 
when advisable, and go ahead until about 10. 
Then dress and drink a cup of coffee on the ve- 
randa downstairs, and then fish from the rocks till 
lunch. After lunch, long walk in the hills around 
Belver and return between 3; 30 and 4, drink tea 
and write till 8, then down to read the papers, the 
local Spanish daily and twice a week the " New 
York Herald," then to bed about 9:30. It is so 
cold that that is the only place. You may notice 
a lack of writing hours in the programme, but 
that is really not my fault. In order to have 
anything definite and coherent and which can be 
joined to what has gone before, I have to think 
a long time. Even then, I write with a shamefiil 
slowness and have just now completed the sec- 
ond chapter, of which the first is ragged and very 
short. The whole business would have to be re- 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 79 

written anyway, if I was ever to show it to any 
one. I am trying gradually to put in everything 
of interest I know and have seen or thought. I 
think that is better than trying to force things. 
I believe a plot of some kind will work out of 
itself. 

In the meantime, I have telegraphed for my 
mail and am eagerly waiting news from home. 
I haven't had any for a month. If you write that 
you despise me, I could always join the Legion 
and try to redeem matters. 

With love to the Da, whom I think it would 

please if I could publish a novel. 

Yours, 

Henry 



Villa Victoria^ Palma de Mallorca^ 
December 4 , 1914 
Dear Ellen: 

This island is truly a fascinating place, and the 
longer I stay, the better I like it. I think it was the 
original home of the lotus trees; beyond the daily 
exodus of the fishing fleet in the dawn and their 
return in the twilight, and the lazy movements 
of occasional tramps, nothing seems to go on. 



80 LETTERS 

Most offices are open from 9:30 to 1, and 
there are of course innumerable y^^e days when 
nobody works. Everybody and everything seems 
to be simple and easy-going, yet there is but 
one beggar in the town and everybody seems 
to know and rather like him. He was made blind 
by an American shell in Cuba, but says that 
he bears me no grudge. I, like every one else, 
give him five centimos (one penny U. S. A.) 
when I pass him. He doesn't make any ex- 
cuse of dire poverty, but smokes rather good 
cigars. 

Every day I get up at dawn to see the fish- 
ing fleet go out, and always the cathedral right 
across the harbor from this place seems more 
mediaeval and impressive. Have you ever lived 
opposite any really good piece of architecture, 
which was alone among the commonplace? I 
don't mean that the town of Palma is common- 
place, but from here no details of houses can be 
made out. The roofs look like chickens swarm- 
ing about the huge brooding cathedral. 

I walk and fish and write every day about the 
same hours, and take all my meals here, and am 
from the negative or passive viewpoint a model 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 81 

boy. Also at the present moment a very serene 
one. 

The housekeeping of the place is deeply in- 
teresting. A little French reforme and myself 
are the only lodgers, and yet, according with the 
Spanish custom, they serve us two huge meals a 
day. For lunch, hors (foeuvres eggs or macaroni, 
fish, a green vegetable, a meat, and fruit, dessert, 
and coffee. For dinner, soup, fish, entree, vege- 
table, meat, etc. All this and lodging for about 
two dollars a day of our money. In Joliga, an 
island southwest of this, you can do it for one 
dollar and a quarter. 

I wish you could influence Alfred to speculate 
or something that would bring in several mil- 
lions, and then hire me as courier guide and 
let me run you about for a year or two. I won- 
der if Uncle Theodore has ever put in here, and 
if so, if the Burgii liked it as much as I do. It is 
really fairly warm here during the day. We eat 
outside and never wear overcoats. At night it is 
cold, and then I go to bed. 

Unfortunately, there is nothing to read, not 
even French books to be had in the town. That, 
however, makes me write the more. In six days 



82 LETTERS 

I have covered about fifty-two block pages in a 
middle-sized hand. I mean that that amount has 
survived the tearing-up process always so dear to 
me. There are a host of things that would bear 
describing, castles, ruined and otherwise, moun- 
tains, etc., but I simply cannot sit down and do 
it. I doubt if it would interest you very much 
if I did. 

As soon as Lee begins to have consecutive 
thoughts, I hope you will give me a detailed 
account of what he thinks about, I really take 
the greatest interest in him, and for some reason 
feel a sort of part ownership in him. The other 
one does not affect me that way at all. 

Au revoir^ my dear, one of these days, and 

please write me a long screed of gossip from 

home. 

Yours, 

Henry 



TELEGRAM TO WILLIAM FARNSWORTH 

Lyon, December 24, 1914 

Love to you and Mother. 

Henry 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 83 

TELEGRAM TO WILLIAM FARNSWORTH 

Paris, January 5 , 1915 
Joined Foreign Legion for duration of war. 

FaRNS WORTH 



TELEGRAM TO HENRY FARNSWORTH 

Boston, January 6, 1915 
Think you have done right. God guard you. 

Mother, Ellen, Father 



Paris, January 1 , 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

Your letters, which arrived in a large packet and 
with many re-addresses upon them, brought 
great joy to your son, who was, and had been 
for some weeks, more lugubrious than necessary. 
I hope in a few days now to be a "soldier 
of the legion," — not St. Augustine's, but not 
wholly despicable "for a' that," — and then my 
joy will be complete. My name is already on the 
list, and Tuesday morning, when all the volun- 
teers for the new regiment they are forming are 
to be rounded up and selected, I have been 



84 LETTERS 

promised by the French captain in charge of the 
recruiting to be one of those accepted. If not, I 
can join the Ambulance, as already written to 
Papa. 

Christmas, on my way to Paris from Barce- 
lona, I stopped off at Lyons and walked way out 
into the country along the Rhone. I thought of 
you riding Adam — do you go alone? — and 
longed and longed to be with you on Eve. I 
wonder if you know the Rhone and the country 
about Lyons. It is veiy beautiful, and for once 
a pale winter sun came and lit up a gigantic white 
cloud and made me think of a passage from a 
French opium smoker that I had been reading : 

" And after the other things had passed away, 
dawn came, cold and bright like the winter in 
France, and lit up a white cloud which shone in 
the heavens like ethereal silver, and from within 
the cloud a choir of horns played Cesar Franck 
until the unseen trumpeters blended into one note 
and a clear light burned steadily for a while and 
I found myself again," etc. 

I know that that sort of thing is not your style, 
but for a week I have been thinking about those 
sorts of things and it all seemed perfectly natural 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 85 

at the time. I speak of it now because I spent 
some time this morning looking at the towers of 
Notre Dame, and thought of }'OU again. Also 
this afternoon I am going to a concert of Cesar 
Franck, and was much struck by what you said 
about Rhodes, Rembrandt, and your taste in lit- 
erature. To say the truth, I don't think there is 
much sense in it, because all art is expression, and 
d' Annunzio, whom I don't know much about, 
by the way, has never tried to express the things 
that Rembrandt or any of his kind were inter- 
ested in, but Dickens, Balzac, Gogol, and Dos- 
toievski are nearer the same catalogue, though 
probably writers of the same epoch are the only 
ones who really hit the mark. 

This is, I suppose, the most solemn New Year 
we will ever see. Nothing can over-express the 
quiet fortitude of the French people. In your 
lessons I hope you will learn them as I am 
beginning to do. 

Your Son, who sends you all his love. 



86 LETTERS 

Cafe des Deux Magotts^ 
Paris, January 1 , 1915 
Dear Papa: 

I am very sorry that I did not get your cable 
about Mr. Bird until yesterday, though for two 
weeks already I had been trying to join the 
Legion. Otherwise, I should have joined the 
American Ambulance and would have been in 
a position to send the articles at once. As it is, I 
shall not know until Tuesday morning whether 
the Legion will accept me. They are getting up 
a new regiment and have more recruits than 
necessary. However, I cannot draw back now, 
and as a matter of fact, I don't want to, and 
even think it the wiser mo\'e in the long run. 
The American Ambulance, the one I can join, 
at least, works with the English army, and the 
French operations are much less known. 

Of course I may have to drill for two or 
even three months and that will delay matters, 
but on the other hand, a company of recruits 
was sent right into the first line after two weeks' 
training, to replace a company that had been 
wiped out. The new volunteers in the Legion, 
those that joined during the month of Septem- 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 87 

ber, were sent forward in November and have 
had heavy losses. That may mean that we shall 
be wanted to fill up gaps. There will really be 
matter for an interesting book, if it turns out 
thus. At the worst, we are bound to take part in 
the big spring campaign, when the serious offen- 
sive begins, and with a stroke of luck, I might 
be in at the death — the Prussian death, that is. 
If on Tuesday morning I am refused, I can still 
go with the Ambulance. 

One point interests me intensely. It is the 
values of the English and French armies. To 
read English magazines, you would gather the 
opinion that the British were fighting the war 
on land as well as sea. While the French are ver}^ 
polite in singing their praises in print, the fact 
remains that the portion of the line held by the 
English is infinitesimally bigger than that held 
by the Belgians, and that whenever advances 
occur, it is always a cooperating force of Allies 
that gains ground. I imagine that this does not 
agree with your views, and of course I know 
nothing definite, but in talking with Americans 
who worked with the British hospital corps I 
found that they always admit "the two sides" of 



88 LETTERS 

the question, and usually favor the French army 

as a fighting machine. Certainly it is true that as 

the British get relieved every two days at most, 

they are in fresher condition than the French, 

who are relieved every three days at least, and 

are often four or five in the gutter trenches. 

I shall cable Tuesday if I get a chance, and 

let you know what I am up to. As to personal 

matters, it is well that I at last got some mail 

fi-om home. For the last month or three weeks 

I have been so morbid that almost anything 

might have happened. Among other things I 

imagined, or rather took for granted, that you 

all despised me, and that nothing but a sense 

of duty kept you from cabling me not to come 

home again. Reading the mail yesterday at Hot- 

tinguer's was like coming out of ether. 

With love, 

Henry 



Cafe des Deux Magotts^ 
Paris, January 1 , 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

You are truly the best of sisters, and a bunch 
of your letters which reached me here in Paris 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 89 

were the most welcome things I ever received. 
You forgive, cheer, and stimulate, all in one act. 
I hope you will never have reason to be sorry 
for it. 

As just written to the Da, for the first time 
I don't know how many weeks, I am trying to 
join the Foreign Legion, and have every reason 
to expect that I shall be accepted on Tuesday 
morning. 

To-day is Friday, and it is lucky some mail 
arrived before the interim of three days of in- 
activity. I have been so unduly nervous of late 
that I truly think, in a city where people of ne- 
cessity are more or less watched, I might have 
been shut up as an idiot. 

It has nothing to do with things in hand, 
but being still full of Mallorca, I must write of 
it some more. It was there in Valldemosa that 
Chopin wrote his funeral march, and it was from 
there that George Sand wrote of him as "vel- 
vet fingered Chopin." Also Richepin in his me- 
moirs looks back to a winter's month spent there 
as the happiest and most peaceflil of his life. 

About an hour's walk fi-om Terrino, where I 
was living, brings you to cliffs wilder and more 



90 LETTERS 

magnificent than any you have ever seen, with 
caves and tunnels, and awflil holes in the flat 
rocks, at the bottom of which you could hear the 
sea sucking in and out, but so far down that you 
can see nothing. In some places the foraiation is 
almost the same as Dore's conception of Hell, 
and over all the warm Mediterranean sun, the 
blue water dotted with little lateen sails. 

I used to sit there by the hour and dream, 
and dream, and watch the clouds. It is only fair 
to say that I was waiting for my baggage to come 
from Paris. But even otherwise, I should never 
regret that month. I used to think a lot of you, 
and our days in Marblehead, and one March 
morning when we drove out to Nahant. 

Here the sun never shines and it rains most 
of the time. If it were not for the spirit of the 
French people, it would be impossible. " Call it 
fate, call it God, call it France and Russia" is 
nearer the truth. 

In the Paris " Midi" was a cabled quotation 
from this morning's leader in the "Times." I 
think even the English are beginning to realize 
what France is doing. Kitchener promises three 
hundred and fifty thousand men next month and 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 91 

a million more by spring. The French papers say 
nothing of two million in the field, and heartily 
applaud the British, saying politely that Kitch- 
ener's opinions are the same as facts. 

Over and above the men mobilized, the 
French have more recruits, foreigners, reformes^ 
and those over or under age, than they can 
handle. The whole countrj^ gives its money, and 
beyond the fact that the ''Marseillaise" is sung 
too much in theatres and played too much in 
movies, nobody glooms much of any. Even those 
that are starving — not few — keep quiet about 
it, and realize that those who have something are 
doing their best for them. 

Have you heard of the Catalan regiment from 

Toulouse, who stayed two weeks in their trench, 

fought seventy-two hours without stopping, and 

when there were only five hundred and sixty of 

them left; and they were relieved, asked for more 

ammunition and permission to advance? 

With love, dear, 

Henry 



92 LETTERS 

Paris, January 5 , 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

I formally and definitely joined the Leg-ion 
Etrangere this morning, and to-morrow morn- 
ing I go into barracks here in Paris, and as soon as 
the company is ready, on to the front. The join- 
ing was to me \&ry solemn. After being stripped 
and examined as carefully as a horse, and given 
a certificate of "aptitude," I went to another 
place and was sworn in. A little old man with 
two medals and a glistening eye looked over my 
papers and then in a strong voice asked if I was 
prepared to become a soldier of France and, if 
asked to, lay down my life for her cause. Then 
I signed, and was told to report the next morn- 
ing and be prepared to start training at once. 

I went out and walked down the Boulevard 
des Invalides, with Napoleon's tomb behind me. 
It was warm and foggy, and the golden-winged 
horses on the Pont Alexandre III seemed to be 
stirring through the mist. Lately I have come 
to love Paris beyond all cities, and now I think 
in a dim way I can understand how the French 
love it. I suppose if America were fighting for 
her life, I should feel the same way about my 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 93 

own country, though I don't about England 
or Serbia, and differently about Russia. Belgium 
surpasses everything. 

Last night I met a newspaper man I had known 
in Vera Cruz and Mexico. He was with an Eng- 
lishman, also a reporter, who was most inter- 
esting. He has been in the Egyptian civil service 
and knew a lot about Mohammedan matters. 
We talked from nine to three, while Rourke slept 
peaceflilly, and I was much flattered that the Eng- 
lishman took copious notes on the German spirit, 
their strength in times past, and on Turkey and 
the Turks' attitude toward the Germans in 1912 
and 1913. Rourke told me that Varges, one of 
Hearst's photographers, had been in jail ever 
since two days after landing. I was ver^^ intimate 
with Varges in Mexico City. 

I enclose New Year's leader from "Le 
Temps." With love to the Da, 

Your Son, who feels on the brink. 

Paris, January 9 , 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

I have now been five days in the Legion and am 
beginning to feel at home there. We are at pres- 



94 LETTERS 

ent in the barracks of Reuilly, but already there 
is talk of going to the front. I am in the 15*^^ 
Company, 2^ reghnent^ premitre regiment de 
marche (whatever that is in English), and the 
13*^^ Company, which is leaving the week after 
next, lacks twenty men and is to take them from 
ours. As there are only thirty-five men so far in 
the 15^^\ I am told that I stand a good chance 
of going. If I do, it will be luck surpassing and 
infinitely more than I hoped for. More of this 
anon. 

As for the Legion, as far as I have seen it, 
it is not much like its reputation. Of course this 
regiment is newly recruited — although the two 
regiments de marche are already on the front, 
and the 13^^ Company is going to fill up gaps. 

In the first place, there is no tough element 
at all. Many of the men are educated, and the 
very lowest is of the high-class workman type. 
In my room, for instance, there are " Le Petit 
Pere Uhlin," an old Alsatian, who has already 
served fourteen years in the Legion in China 
and Morocco; the Corporal Lebrun, a Socialist 
well known in his own district ; Engler, a Swiss 
cotton broker fi'om Havre; Donald Campbell, 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 95 

a newspaper man and short story writer, who 
will not serve in the English army because his 
family left England in 1 745, with the exception of 
his father, who was Captain in the Royal Irish 
Fusiliers; Sukuna, a Fijian student at Oxford, 
black as ink ; Hath, a Dane, over six feet, whom 
Campbell aptly calls ^'The Blonde Beast" (vide 
'' Zarathustra") ; Von somebody, another Dane, 
very small and young; Bastados, a Swiss car- 
penter, born and bred in the Alps, who sings 
— when given half a litre of canteen wine — 
far better than most comic opera stars, and who 
at times does the Ranz des Vaches so that even 
Petit Pere Uhlin claps; the brigadier Mus- 
sorgsky, cousin descendant of the composer, a 
little Russian; two or three Polish Jews, non- 
descript Belgians, Greeks, Roumanians, etc. I 
already have enough to write a long (ten thou- 
sand word) article, and at the end of the cam- 
paign can write a book truly interesting. 

As to my going to the front, it is technically 
against the rules, as only those who have been 
inoculated four times — at ten-day intervals — 
are supposed to leave. On the other hand, I stand 
in well with the Corporal, thanks to Bles, who 



96 LETTERS 

taught me to drill with my eyes shut and in 
any language; and thanks to God and a month 
in Mallorca, which gave me strength to raise a 
service rifle from the muzzle with each wrist — I 
was lame for two days, but was reported to have 
done the feat ''''tout simplement^ en passant'''' — 
and thanks to an unmistakable bullet scar on the 
hip, which the Sergeant, a Russian of the regular 
army, noticed and gave undue importance to — 
it came in the Telacpalon affair and was treated 
with cotton and electric tape at the time — and 
lastly thanks to young Christobal de Qu)tos, 
whom I left in Madrid and found again in the 
ranks of the 13*^^ Company, about to be made 
Corporal and very friendly with both the Lieu- 
tenant and Captain. Also the fact that I knew 
how to clean a gun and never "kick about the 
food" weighs in the scale, and also, having — 
please don't think I 'm trying to be tough, for 
most of your men friends could and would have 
— knocked out one of the Belgians in a certain 
esoteric manner which made me instantly very 
close with the Pere Uhlin, the Mulvaney of the 
three companies. 

All that page is what I am most full of — my 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 97 

own chances of getting to the front. Now for 
general detail. 

We live in the Caserne de Reuilly in the bar- 
racks of the 46*^^^ regiment de ligne — a very well- 
known regiment, who have been in all the wars 
since 1650, and have their campaigns painted on 
the wall. Also it is the oldest and most uncom- 
fortable barracks in town. It is about a mile from 
the Place de la Bastille and in the Quartier du 
Faubourg St. Antoine. We rise at 6:30, drink 
one cup of coffee, and drill from 7:30 to 9:30. 
Good fast drill, with guns at the regulation 
French "Carry arais" — a hellish position — 
most of the time. At 10:30 La Soupe^ and rest 
until 12:30. Then drill till 3:45, clean arms, 
more soup at 5, and freedom till 8:30. It is hard 
on those in soft condition, but easy for the others. 
The drill is purely of the recruit order and done 
in sections. Little Lee could be taught to do it. 
I may add that it's not done half as smartly as 
Bles used to exact. The more I learn, the more 
I know that Bles was bom for a drill-master. De 
Q,u}Tos tells me that he has gone as observer in 
an aeroplane, with the French. I wish him luck; 
he is physically unfit for either the French or Brit- 



98 LETTERS 

ish service, but deserves better. To-day is Sunday 
and we get off at 10:30 a.m. Hence this length 
of letter. Ordinarily I cultivate acquaintance. 

Campbell is a really interesting man; Harrow, 
and then all over the world in most capacities. 
He never mentions it, but I suspect from certain 
tricks of the trade that I picked up from Race — 
whom he knows — that he is no stranger to the 
British secret service. His acquaintance in Paris 
is of the amusing type. He has already taken me 
up to the " Daily Mail" office, where I met some 
very nice men, among others, S. Ward Pryce, 
whom I knew slightly in Turkey, and Rourke, 
whom I knew pretty well in Vera Cruz and Mex- 
ico. All these people seem to respect us very much 
for joining the Legion. Campbell is not over 
respectable from the New York or New England 
standpoint, but he is a man and a gentleman for 
a' that — Scotch of course by descent, although of 
French upbringing in spite of an English school. 

Lebrun, our Corporal, is also worth know- 
ing; of Belgian descent, although in Paris since 
six years of age. He is of the type which brought 
victory to the French Revolution. Wounded at 
the beginning of the war, he asked to go back to 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 99 

the front; but when requested to stay and drill 
recruits, he accepted, on the condition that he 
might remain a corporal. He does not approve of 
authority, and if all men were like him, it would 
not be necessary. Like all Socialists, he likes to 
argue. Last night, after the lights were out, he 
began to argue with the cotton broker, and be- 
came very heated. So much so that Campbell was 
afraid of bad blood. The broker had announced 
himself as a radical anti-clerical. Finally Camp- 
bell made himself heard, and Lebrun angrily 
asked him his party. " French Traditional Royal- 
ist," replied Campbell, and Lebrun gave up with 
a good-natured laugh. Extremes met. Bastados 
began "iVow^ sommes tous les freres^"* the Le- 
gion's song, and all passed over. 

With love, 

Henry 

Amhassadt la Republique Franqaise aux Etats- Unis 
Washington^ It January 12, 1915 

My dear Governor: 

In answer to your letter of the 7^^, I hasten to 
say, first, that the enlisting of young Mr. Farns- 
worth is one more token of the admirable sym- 



100 LETTERS 

pathy shown us by so many Americans in the 
great struggle in which we are presently engaged. 
Be so good as to convey to his father the feel- 
ings of gratitude which such a noble act cannot 
but elicit in every French heart. 

Concerning the Foreign Legion, I can assure 
you that most of the elements there are excellent. 
A great many people are French; the officers are 
among the best we have, most of them being 
French too. The number of Americans is also 
very great, and, if I mistake not, they form a 
group apart, having been included in the same 
recently, where, judging fi'om letters now and 
then printed in the American papers, they lead 
a life which seems to interest them very much and 
to answer their expectations. I have just before 
me, at the present time, on my table, a letter from 
an American friend of our cause who wants to 
enlist himself, if that be possible, and who has 
already at the front, in the Deux'ieme Etranger^ 
his only son and his two nephews. 

I do not think it is at all impossible to locate 
a private soldier in the Foreign Legion, any more 
than in any other regiment. If your friend knows 
the Company to which his son belongs, he has 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 101 

the fairest chance that his letters, or almost any- 
thing he would choose to send him, would reach 
him. Some letters may be lost, but others, with- 
out doubt, would reach their destination. 

I have several nephews in the trenches, and 
while at first, in the confusion of the early days, 
nothing from their families could reach them, for 
many weeks now almost every letter, and even 
bundles and parcels of chocolate, etc., arrive 
without difficulty. 

With best wishes for the welfare of the brave 

young American who has so pluckily espoused 

our cause, and with best souvenirs to you and 

Mrs. Guild, I beg you to believe me, my dear 

Governor, 

Most sincerely yours, 

jusserand 
Hon. Governor Guild, 
Boston, Mass. 

Paris, January 17, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

Although I have sent a postcard to Hottinguer 

to forward my mail to the barracks, none has 

come through yet, and hence I am without any 

news from home and have nothing but Legion 



102 LETTERS 

gossip to write about. I don't suppose it is the 
sort of thing that interests you much, but I, in 
spite of dirt, cold, blistered heels, and hard work, 
find it fascinating. 

I am thoroughly at home by this time and 
good friends with every one in the company, even 
including a Belgian whom I was forced to lick 
thoroughly. The two great Legion marching 
songs, ^'' Car nous sommes tous les freres^'' and 
the old, the finest marching song in the world, 

'* Soldats de la Legion 

La Legion Etrang'^re, 
N^ayant fias de fiatrie. 

La France est notre m'^re^^* 

are quite true at bottom, at least in the 15*^ 
Company. Farm hands, professional soldiers, 
wood workers, journalists, socialists, royalists. 
Christians, and Jews are all working in harmony, 
and each one doing his best for himself and his 
comrades. Our Captain, a veteran of 1870 and 
a retired Legionary, is largely responsible. A 
Frenchman of the best type, an aristocrat, a coun- 
trjTnan, the best shot, and still one of the best 
marchers, he uses the most extraordinary com- 
mon sense. He keeps up the most iron discipline 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 103 

while drill is going on, and will give a man two 
days in jail for a dirty capote or even for talking 
in the ranks or for being late to the appel^ but 
outside of business he is as indulgent as possible. 
In spite of the good spirit of the company, the 
place is no Sunday- School, and on some occasions 
he could raise trouble if he wanted to. He never 
winks at the delinquents. He tells them what he 
thinks of them and what he will do if it happens 
again. So far nobody has repeated an offence. 

There is also a picturesqueness about it all that 
I never expect to see equalled. Reggie Water- 
bury has turned up here, and having been in- 
troduced to Donald Campbell, a most genial and 
amusing soul of vast acquaintance here in Paris, 
we three often dine together. Campbell and I 
get leave till 10 p.m. and Reggie puts on his 
bully suit — so as not to be refused admittance 
— and the three of us go about to all the most 
"exclusive" bars and cafes. The ftmny part is 
that Campbell and I, being in Legionary uni- 
form, excite great admiration, and the most 
respectable old gentlemen, catching sight of the 
Legion button, step up and ask us to drink with 
them. The other day I bought a pair of boots and 



104 LETTERS 

was at the caisse paying for them, when the man- 
ager of the shop dashed up and said that he would 
not take any pa\Tnent from " iin des petits Le- 
gionnaires.'''' I explained to him that I had plenty 
of money, but that if he would give me a reduc- 
tion, I would see that the difference went where 
it would be really appreciated. He gave me ten 
francs off, and I gave five to Le Petit Pere Uhlin 
and five to de Hath, a Dane and a gentleman, 
explaining of course how I got the money. Uhlin 
sent a money order to his wife in Alsace and 
de Hath bought a pair of gloves. I mention this 
episode because it is a good example of the way 
things go in our company. Although Uhlin has 
spent hours showing me how to take down the 
rifle, to grease boots, fence with the bayonet, pol- 
ish my belt, etc., I have never dared offer him 
any money, although I knew he had not a cent 
except the five centimes per day that is the reg- 
ulation pay. 

The other day Campbell was paid two hun- 
dred francs for some stories he wrote in the 
" Daily Mail." He dined Waterbury and myself 
and Sukuna, the Fijian from Oxford, and then 
bought twenty litres of wine for the company. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 105 

As for leaving for the front. The 13^*^ Com- 
pany, which was due to go this week, is still here. 
I had put in an application to go with them, and 
was told yesterday by the Captain that if I in- 
sisted, I could go when they left, but he asked 
me personally to stay in the 15^^, and I think 
in the long run it will be better so. The 13*^' is 
nothing to brag about, and is not well thought 
of by the general staff who reviewed us all the 
other day. On the other hand, we received spe- 
cial mention and are well thought of by all. We 
have not a soul in jail at present and have never 
had anybody on the sick list — also, as a com- 
pany, we have rejfused all bureau jobs, and by 
request we all carry ftiU weight packs at all drills. 
I am now in the first file, and have so far the 
best shooting record in the company. The stan- 
dard is very low and 150 meters the longest range 
so far. Our old captain puts his ten shots in a 
circle of eight inches at 400, just to show us what 
he considers normal Legion shooting — he is 
considered one of the best shots in France — and 
Pere Uhlin, who detests marching and drilling, 
never appears at the butts. 

In the meantime, I am learning to really speak 



106 LETTERS 

French and understand the French, and when it 
is all over, will have material for an interesting 
book. 

A bit of silliness that, being on the heart, must 
come out, is that a Martinique nigger, who be- 
lieves he has divining powers, fell into a violent 
fever yesterday after the typhoid inoculation, and 
prophesied about some of us. Two were to be 
killed, one of them the Corporal, several of us 
wounded, and for myself, medaille militaire. I 
would give my soul for it! 

With love to Ellen and Mother, 

Yours, 

Henry 

Hotel St. Pkttrshourg^ 

33 (fe 35 Rue Caumartin^ 
PariSj January 21, 1915 
Dear Aunt Alice: 

While I was eating sodden potatoes and salt beef 
out of a tin pail, known as the gammelle.^ in the 
room of the 15*^ Company of the first regiment 
of the Paris Battalion of the Foreign Legion, 
a letter was given me, and in it was a check for 
£5.2 5. from you. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 107 

I don't know when my heart has so bounded 
with joy. My own funds being somewhat ex- 
hausted, I had for ten days been living on the 
regimental pay, sou per day and half a pound of 
tobacco every ten days. 

I don't believe any of your Christmas gifts 
brought more joy. I immediately obtained leave 
for the afternoon, and am now just out of a 
hot bath, am smoking a good cigarette, writing 
in a comfortable hotel, and am brimming with 
gratitude. 

On the 31^* of this month we leave for Lyons 
and on the 15^^ of February for Albert, a small 
town on the Somme, where I am glad to say the 
fighting is active. 

In the meantime I have found four sympa- 
thetic friends in my company and like the rest of 
them. The work is hard, but every one is glad to 
do it, and we all — I am not writing to hear 
myself talk, as some one said of Hall Caine — 
love France and are willing to do our little best 
for her. 

I think of you, in your rooms in the Ven- 
dome, all peaceful — so am I until the 15^^ of 
February — and thank you from the bottom of 



108 LETTERS 

my heart. You have provided me with little 
comforts, and during the life in barracks my 
body as well as my heart will remind me of youi' 
everlasting kindness. 

Your affectionate nephew, 

Henry 



Hotel St. Petersbonrg^ 
33 (fe 35 Rue Caumartin^ Paris^ 
\_about January 2 5, 1915] 
Dear Papa: 

I have just read your letter concerning the Le- 
gion. What I have written before explains pretty 
well the situation. To be technical. I am in the 
Premiere Battalion, Premiere Regiment, 3 Re- 
giment de Marche, de la Legion Etrangere de 
Paris — which means that the regular Legion has 
been made open for enlistment for the duration 
of the war and that an extra battalion has thus 
been formed. As most of the recruits joined in 
Paris, the Battalion was christened Legion 
fitrangere de Paris — and as they may form 
another, it was called the first. 

As for the class of people, De Hath, Broke- 
man, Campbell, Engler, and Sukuna are all gen- 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 109 

tlemen whom I would not hesitate to invite to 
dine at home, though Engler is very bourgeois 
(the virtues compris) . As for the rest of them, 
you would detest them, and I say frankly that 
I like them, for the most part, and so does the 
Captain, who is more of an aristocrat than any 
of us. They are rough, drink when they have 
money, and when they have not, do not try to 
bum drinks. They will all go to considerable 
trouble to do a comrade a favor. I am not the 
one to rave about "good red blood," but I feel 
a personal pride in the 15^^ Company and will 
stand up for it. The way the men will march on 
horribly blistered feet, and say nothing about it 
to the officers, is splendid, and the drill is no joke. 
We march 24 kilometers a day, manoeuvre two 
hours at Vincennes, and two hours' section drill 
in the Parade ground. That in full campaign 
outfit. On shooting days we do no drill, only 
march from the Reuilly barracks to Auteuil, 
shoot at the butts, and march home, from 6 a.m. 
to 5 p.m. I assume you will think me young and 
hence wrong, but I would rather go into action 
with my company than with any English regi- 
ment, or most that would be raised in Boston. 



no LETTERS 

I hope you won't think me uppish, because I 
am at bottom both affectionate and respectful. 

H. W. F. 



Pans, January 25, 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

We have at last definite marching orders, and 
twenty of us leave Thursday for Peronne, the 
general headquarters of the Legion. It is about 
fifteen miles fi-om the German lines, and we are 
to make ourselves useful there and complete our 
training, get used to the atmosphere, and take 
our place in the ti'enches as soon as possible. 

All is bustle and excitement. Everybody is 
being re-equipped, and with the best that a Gov- 
ernment can supply, and many of the men are 
going to the various newspaper offices and beg- 
ging warm clothes, etc. At the last moment a bit 
of unexpected pride prevented me from going. 
I have left enough in my letter of credit to get 
me home after the war and buy my own extras. 
There are so many without a centime, who are 
going just as I am and who hate the cold nearly 
as much. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 111 

Last Friday we shot, all three companies to- 
gether, at four hundred meters. I regret to say 
that the night before, instead of coming back at 
8:30 as the regulations rule, I returned at 1:30 
a.m. and unfortunately ran into a Brazilian lieu- 
tenant of the 13*^ Company, whom I had always 
detested. He said nothing about it at the time, 
but at the Butts, as I went up to shoot, he stood 
behind me and made sarcastic remarks about my 
handling of the rifle. We shoot lying down at 
that range. Fortunately the French rifle agrees 
with me and I put four shots in the bull's-eye. 
The Lieutenant, contrary to regulations, gave me 
four more and told me to shoot again. At that 
range it is a great strain, at least for me, to shoot 
with the necessary care. I perspired freely, but 
got four more bulls. It ended by my making 
a perfect score with twenty rounds. At last he 
relented, and said to the scorer, ''''Enjin nomme 
lepointeur il ne vaut pas la peine de bruler les 
munitions tout la matinee^^ and then in English 
to me, with a man to man, instead of officer to 
private, accent, " I was going to give you four 
days in jail on bread and water. Instead, you 
are now a sharpshooter. But please don't let it 



112 LETTERS 

happen again, and I advise you to resign as 
soon as the war is over. You may be of service 
at the front, but in my opinion you are not the 
type that is wanted in the ranks." After that he 
gave me a drink from his canteen, talked about 
Mexico, and ended by telhng me to ride his 
horse back to barracks, as he was going else- 
where. 

It was owing to this affair that I am on the list 
to leave. The Colonel reviewed us Saturday and 
talked with those who were recommended to 
go. When he came to me, he put his foot down 
and said I must have at least two months' train- 
ing before going out, and the Brazilian saved the 
day by personal intercession. 

I can't express my joy at leaving the cold and 
dirt and dulness and drill of barrack life. At 
Peronne we will have the work without the ex- 
citement, but it is a step. We will be doing some- 
thing actual, and I have hopes of being sent on 
among the very first. 

The Captain told me briefly that some things 
were tolerated in the English and American 
armies that were not in the French, but that enfin 
I had always given proof of hon volonte v/hen 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 113 

work was concerned, and that France needed 
men and he would try to give me a chance 
among the first, because he was sure that I had 
volunteered to fight, and not to get a better job 
after the war. I would really do anything for 
that gallant little old man, with his wispy fiery 
moustache, proud, kindly bearing, and wise old 
desert eyes. 

Our caporal Fournier, a Swiss, has deserted 
and disappeared. The prospect of a winter cam- 
paign was too much for him. Also a Russian 
Jew had hysterics last night when told of the 
death of his brother-in-law. He was reforme this 
morning and dismissed quietly. He always was 
a swine, and there are three or four more, 
his friends all, whom I would not trust under 
fire. 

On the whole, twenty of the twenty-six I am 
personally sure of and am glad to be with. Old 
father Uhlin, the old legionary, who, by the 
way, always does exactly as he likes, has ar- 
ranged to ride on the wagons and fight on foot. 
He is a most remarkable man, and though he 
cannot read or write, the more I know him, the 
more I believe he is one of the wisest men I ever 



114 LETTERS 

met. His common sense is astounding. He is 
truly the type of peasant who wrote the " Fabli- 
aux" one thousand years ago. 

I have material for a book worth reading. I 
know that a second Abraham Lincoln would 
write it by the camp-fire, but being as I am, I 
can't write with half-frozen fingers, and it takes 
me a long time to digest what I take in. As 
for what I wrote in Mallorca, there are a block 
and a half of it in the Hotel Terminus Gare 
St. Lazare. 

By way of lugubriosity^ if I get myself shot, 
you can recover all my effects by asking the con- 
sul here to send the trunks which I left there on 
January 6. I locked them up in the storehouse 
this afternoon, and they are all there, marked 
with my name. In the meantime, the mails are 
not very regular, and you may not always hear 
from me. If anything should happen, you would 
hear almost at once, so for once no news will be 
no damage. 

I have arranged with Hottinguer to forward 
my mail, and in the future if you will write there 
I will get the letters in time. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 1 1 5 

My official address is : 

2 Armee 
14 Corps 
28 Division 
56 Brigade 

Premiere Etrangere 

3 Regiment de Marche 
15 Companie 

Caserne de Reuilly 
(That is the Legion post-office.) 

All revoirf With a full and joyous heart. Love 
to the Da. I am glad you all approve of my 
action. 

Henry 



Paris, February 1, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

At last the final delay that according to my 

experience is inevitable in all army movements 

is over, and to-morrow we start forward. We 

were supposed to go Thursday, but this time it 

is a sure thing. 

Yesterday we were reviewed for about the 

hundredth time in full campaign order. Even the 



1 1 6 LETTERS 

cartridges have been served out, ninety-six of 
them per man, and they add considerably to the 
weight of the equipment. You, with what you 
consider more vital things in mind, will turn up 
your nose at this last item, but if you stand in 
the ranks for one hour and ten minutes with the 
sort of pack necessary for an inspection, your 
back and shoulders will tell you that it is of the 
utmost importance. I know you get used to it 
in a few weeks, but even that is unnecessary. 

I have made up my actual campaign kit and 
Pere Uhlin has gone over it thoroughly and pro- 
nounced it quite sufficient. He has also taught me 
to make it up in such a workmanlike way that 
a captain who happened up in the barracks asked 
me where I had seen service before. It weighs 
about two-thirds of what the rest are starting 
with. What is more, Uhlin assures me that I 
am quite right in thinking that anything that is 
necessary can always be got hold of at the front 
in one way or another. 

At the last minute another legionary, a man 
who says he does not remember what country 
he came from, but whom I suspect of being a 
German (Bavarian or Bohemian), has dropped 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 117 

in and is to be our Sergeant. He has completed 
his fifteen years and is coming along because he 
wants to have his pension in his son's name. 
Although that is what he says, I think his real 
reason is the joy of it. 

I could write you ten pages about the doings 
of this one and Uhlin during the last few days, 
on how to pass the guard at the barrack gate, 
and generally def)' all the rules of military life, 
but I shall not inflict them. In all affection, it 
would be wasted. Hereafter, it shall be written, 
but by an unworthy hand. Uhlin's song of pack- 
ing the sack would need a Rabelais and a Kip- 
ling to expound to the public. There is an official 
string provided to tie the tent pegs to the outside 
of the sack. He gave at least twenty-seven uses 
to which it might be put, all in his slow Alsatian 
legionary argot. Before the end Campbell and 
myself were rolling on the floor in an agony of 
laughter. The scene in the dirty whitewashed 
barrack room, lighted by one guttering lamp, 
with the black shadows cast by the rifles in the 
rack, old Uhlin with his little desert-bleached eyes 
snapping and his fi-eshly waxed moustache bris- 
tling like a cat's, and Campbell with his genial, 



118 LETTERS 

ineffaceably Bohemian air, — it will always re- 
main, it is one of the pearls without price that 
many a worthless rolling-stone may carry in his 
memory, but which, alas ! he can only share in 
part and that a faint one, and with a world of 
Pharisees who turn up their noses to criticise 
aesthetically the method of presentation, under- 
stand nothing at all about any of it, and sub- 
consciously pity the man who in turn pities them 
back. 

All this, however, is of no great matter. The 
one thing of any importance is that we leave 
for the front to-morrow morning at 12:35 and 
go to actual active service. All the men that 
are good for anything in our company are well 
looked on by all the officers, and it is generally 
understood that we are actually to fight, and that 
before long, too. 

I have overhauled my rifle for the fifteenth 
time and put it in a properly greasy campaign 
condition. I long and long to see something bet- 
ter than a black spot at the other end of the fi-ont 
sight. From general gossip it is thought that 
where we are going most of the fighting is vil- 
lage fighting, which is far more amusing than 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 119 

the trenches, particularly in this bad weather, 
when not very much is going on. 

To be more serious, the more I learn of 
French and France, the more I am glad to 
have a chance to do my little best for her. For 
Heaven's sake, try to give your boys a chance 
to travel and for a while to live in Paris. What 
they lose in worldly effects they will gain tenfold 
in inward joy, which those less fortunate can 
never dream of. I don't set up to know either 
French or Paris, but I am making their acquaint- 
ance and am very glad even of that. 

As for details, I have shaved my head and am 
growing a beard. It is of a dark reddish color 
that some gorillas have, and far from pretty. 

As for other things, write to Hottinguer, 38 

rue de Provence. They know how to address my 

letters so that they will get there. I will write 

to you when I have the chance, but it may not 

be very often. In the meantime I send you my 

best love. 

Henry 



120 LETTERS 

\_Somewhere in France] 
February 14, 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

After a week in a small village, where we made 
route marches every day, learned to carry the 
sack, and personally got into wonderftil condition, 
we packed up our belongings and came on to 
this village of , where we are in daily artil- 
lery contact with the Germans and not more than 
a few kilometers from the first line of trenches. 
In four or five days more I ought to be there 
myself. In the meantime we are getting a fair 
breaking in to the '^horrors of war." 

On arrival here we were put into bad quar- 
ters, and Engler, Campbell, Sukuna, an old le- 
gionary (not father Uhlin), and a Pole hovn 
Igeria, and I all got out and found a very com- 
fortable hay-mow near the kitchen of a battery of 
75 artillery. We soon made friends with them, 
and yesterday when they went to bombard, they 
left us in charge of their fire and told us to make 
ourselves at home. We did this by fiying some of 
their potatoes. In the midst of this we began to 
bombard with fury, until the echoes began to be 
continuous. This put us all in high spirits, when. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 121 

with a hiss like a hellish rocket, a German shell 
came through the roof of our sleeping quarters. 
Two men were knocked down and one hurt a 
little, the rest of us not touched. Of course we 
had to pick up and get back to the company 
quarters. I personally lost half of my belongings, 
buried in dust and debris. However, nothing of 
any value was lost, and now my pack is easier 
to carry. 

For about an hour shells dropped on the vil- 
lage, but not much of any damage was done. All 
last night we fired pretty steadily though slowly, 
and now the German shells are falling thickly 
around us. I suppose fifty have come over and 
burst, one carrying off another piece of our roof. 

Campbell, Sukuna, the old legionary, Moreno 
by name, and myself have found another quar- 
ter. It is again in a hay-mow, reached by a ladder, 
which the rest lack energy to go out and steal. 
Just now we are all up here writing, and nobody 
seems to mind the continual hiss and bang. 

I wrote a postcard earlier in the day to the 
Da and asked for a gift of moneys. Please explain 
to him that I have £40 on my letter of credit, 
but need that to get home after the war. Also 



122 LETTERS 

I don't, strictly speaking, need any. I only want 
it to buy cigarettes, hot coffee, clean socks, wine, 
white bread, etc. It would of course be better 
for me to go without such luxuries. 

As for mail, write to Hottinguer. He can al- 
ways get mail to me. 

Love to the Da and Ellen and Ellen's brood. 

Henry 

March 6, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

I am writing from the trenches, so please excuse 
the extraordinary paper. I have no need to be 
so mournful as it looks. 

As for news. There is not much in our dis- 
trict. The cannonading, which was described in 
the Officiel Communique as excessively violent, 
has dwindled to an occasional flurry of shells. 
In my company we have a loss now and then, 
usually the man's own fault for not keeping his 
head below the trench line. We have been work- 
ing fairly hard mounting guard and digging all 
through the night while in the trenches, and a 
bit of digging on other sectors during the four 
days' repos. Not an over-exciting programme, 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 123 

but there is a general feeling in the air that with 
a little better weather, things may start up a bit. 
A few mornings ago the Germans delivered 
a flirious attack on the French line about seven 
kilometers to the right of our position. These 
wretched people chose a minute when one bat- 
talion was replacing another in the trenches. The 
French were practically elbow to elbow in their 
trenches, and they say that the Germans suffered 
big losses. There was cannonading for about half 
an hour and then the rifles began to splutter 
briskly, growing rapidly from the prairie-fire- 
like crackle of the beginning of an engagement 
to the constant drumming of the resistance to the 
charge. The whir of the mitrailleuse at fiall speed 
at once loudened and steadied the sound effect. 
Rockets and candle bombs hung steadily over the 
scene. The light artillery roared, and way back in 
the distance the English naval guns, so gossip has 

it, mounted at , thundered steadily. The 

rifles died away in ten minutes, and in half an 
hour the thing was over, except for the rumble of 
distant big guns. In that respect the Germans are 
well provided. A Russian of the 4*^ section of 
my company told me the other day a 405 milli- 



124 LETTERS 

meter shell dropped in on them and destroyed a 
week's advance digging that they had been doing. 

As for personal matters. I love to get your and 
Mother's and Ellen's letters more than I ever 
did before. I know that you are eager for mine, 
and suppose I ought to write more, but really 
there is not much time; rifle and arms must be 
kept clean, the mud must be scraped off shoes and 
capote^ and I need lots of sleep nowadays in order 
to keep as fit as possible. When the advance 
comes, I want to be one of those capable of doing 
my share of it. I still have trouble with my feet 
marching, but by taking good care of them and 
using plenty of grease, I get along well. In an- 
other month I ought to be a fairly good soldier, 
physically, that is, for though I know what is to 
be said fi'om the fireside on the point, I am not 
very strong on cantonment discipline, or on the 
respect due the humors of sous-officiers . 

In the meantime Sukuna and I live in the 
greatest peace and mutual enjoyment of each 
other's company. We are in the same section and 
squad, and in the trenches share the same cabin. 
Sukuna is always writing to old ladies and gen- 
tlemen who interest themselves in Indians and 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 125 

other native students at Oxford, and in return 
has received delicious tucker boxes from them. 
These we share en Legionnaire^ and sometimes 
he gathers in so much that it is all we can both 
do to carry it. 

Evening ''Alertef' I go to work till dawn. 
Love to all, 

Henry 



[About March 7, 1915] 
Dear Ellen: 

When I wrote to Mother last, bombs were burst- 
ing not far away and two of the bunch had 
already been slightly hurt, but I was not yet a 
soldier. Now I am, having just come back from 
four days in the trenches. At the moment I am 
sitting in the sun and writing on the back of a 
biscuit tin, which came last night to Sukuna. Tlie 
idleness is explained by the fact that six of us are 
mounting guard in a little wood outside of the 
village. I have been washing clothes all the morn- 
ing, and am now about to cook some macaroni, 
also the property of Sukuna. The same kind soul 
has also provided me with some good cigarettes. 
There is a little hint of warmth in the sun — only 



126 LETTERS 

random rifle shots and a distant battery and the 
quacking of wild ducks breaks the silence. 

Your and Mother's letters came yesterday, 
apparently just having heard of my enlistment, 
and were a great joy. I have not the time here 
to try to put you in the full atmosphere of the 
trenches, and their sensations and reactions. You 
read the papers and know that there is a deal of 
mud and water and cold, and not overmuch room. 
Sukuna, Campbell, and myself are stationed in 
an avant petit paste. Our cabin was 10 by 5 by 
4 and, all of us being lazy souls, filled with no 
ordinary clutter and dirt. All day we slept, ate, 
cleaned our trenches and rifles, and smoked Su- 
kuna's tobacco. The wily Fijian seems to have 
unlimited old ladies who send him "tucker" 
boxes. 

Then came the magic of the nights. At sun- 
down we began to do sentry, hour on and hour 
off" till daylight. We were about 50 meters from 
the German trenches and not allowed to shoot 
(why, I don't know) . As the night grows and 
you stand crouching and watching for any sign 
of life ahead of you, the very air seems to come 
to life. All is still, nobody talks above a whisper, 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 127 

and all lights are out. From trenches all along the 
maze of line shots crack out and stray impersonal 
bullets whiz by on unknown errands. A huge 
rocket candle shoots up and hangs for a moment 
above the earth, lighting up a section of the coun- 
try, big guns boom out, and shells like witches 
riding to a feast whiz by. Sometimes, with a 
whistle and bang, a half-dozen "75's" swoop 
over like a covey of devil's quail, and we stand 
crouching and watching for any sign of human 
hfe. It never came. Just the impersonal bang 
and whistle. 

I must do my cooking now and leave a lot 
unsaid. We go again to the trenches in two days. 
I will try to write from there. As a Parthian 
good-bye, — send me two tooth-brushes, stiff, and 
some paste (easier to carry) , a machine to light 
cigarettes with — both with alcohol and that 
string stuff — a pot of boracic ointment, and one 
of vaseline, this latter a big one, and if you are 
the sort of Christian Christ was, 100 cigarettes. 
I have not a centime to bless myself. 
With love to all. 

Your brother, 

Henry 



128 LETTERS 

March 17, 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

It seems an age since last I wrote, and I have 
received a whole packet of letters from you and 
the Da and Ellen. Times have been busy with 
us here, — our regular work in the trenches and 
dui'ing the four days' repos^ always on the move, 
going out at night to strengthen the line in weak 
places, and hasty digging in the pitch dark, what 
and for what you know not. Many of the men 
think they are overworked, and grumble the way 
such people do. Sukuna and I go on as peace- 
ful and contented as ever. The others have been 
at it all winter and are more tired, I suppose. 
■ Hottinguer also sent me 250 francs, which I 
suppose must be from the Da. He must have tele- 
graphed it after receiving my begging letter. I 
am much touched and very grateful. I thank him 
as best I can. 

Knitted socks, from the maids, as you say, 
have also arrived, and a most glorious muffler. 
One pair of socks is on and comforting, and the 
muffler, during the one cold night we have had 
since its arrival, was wrapped about my body as 
a belt and was welcome. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 129 

The money has made a great difference; 
was immediately able to buy candles for our 
cabin in the trenches; sugar, which Sukuna 
loves, matches, etc. Sukuna for the moment is 
without a centime, though his train of eatables 
still arrives with fair regularity. At seven this 
morning we arrived here, where I first came to 
the front, by the way, and this evening or to- 
morrow I hope to give a feast of cheese, white 
bread, tobacco, wine, jam, and pate to all those 
who have been kind to me in my destitution. 

As for war news, there is the usual scarcity. 
The Germans have been bombarding fliriously 
at times, and with slow steadiness all the time. 
We sit in our trench cabin or mount guard at 
night in the advance posts, and dig interminably, 
deepening and strengthening the trenches, and 
little or no attention is paid to the whistle and 
bang of the shells. 

The other day, for various reasons having 
rowed with the Sergeant, I was sent up to work 
through the night with the 3^ Company, and 
stayed up there during the day, as my own com- 
pany, the 6^^, was to replace them some time 
during the next night. As all the cabins were full. 



130 LETTERS 

two others in the same predicament and myself 
established ourselves in the cellar of a house, the 
top of which had been blown entirely away. That 
afternoon the Germans let shells drop like rain 
on the village for a while. The noise was terri- 
ble and wonderftil, too. The damage, everything 
being already ruined, amounted to nothing. 
Finally they set fire to a group of farmhouses on 
the other side of the canal. As the darkness came 
on, the flames became fearful. I never saw such a 
blaze, lighting up the whole countryside as bright 
as day. I was put on "kitchen corvee ^"^ which 
means carr}dng the stuflTof the Z^ Company down 
to where the wagons were, making room for the 
6*^ Company, which was coming up. The road, 
which is unfortunately exposed to the enemy, 
was as bright as day, and most of the men were 
herded into a hoyau on the other side of the canal. 
By staying discreetly in the rear I managed to 
get left behind, and was free to take the road 
with only my sack of bread for company. Alas! 
none can paint such a scene, and I am too tired 
to attempt a description. The canal is lined with 
poplars, which cast magic shadows on the blaz- 
ing flames. Every two or three minutes shells 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 131 

came over and burst over the fire. The bombard- 
ment in the afternoon had smashed several of 
the poplars, and they lay all mangled and drag- 
ging their tops in the sleepy, beautiful canal. Bul- 
lets zipped by and forced me to hide from time 
to time, when the great green German candles 
sailed up into the black sky, and hanging for a 
minute or two like earthly stars, lit up the vicin- 
ity beyond the firelight. 

War is terrible and hard, incredibly, but what 
thoughts and scenes it raises ! Walking back with- 
out the bread sack, and knowing there was no 
hurry, I whistled the Fifth Symphony and 
thought of you. I don't know when I have been 
in a sadder or more tender mood. The shelling 
died down to an occasional shot, and no Germans 
disturbed my walk home. It was a warm even- 
ing, and with the fire to help out, was almost like 
Dedham garden on a night in June. I longed 
and long to be at home again, but war is war. 
Nothing can approach it, and every man ought 
to know it once. 

After getting back to the 3^ Company quar- 
ters, I got my sack and things and crossed the 
canal to the burning village. It is in the trenches 



132 LETTERS 

in front of this that my section is placed. My 
company turned up about midnight, and I spent 
the night on guard on watch, and as usual, set- 
tled in our cabin with Sukuna. 

All this may not make much sense, but I have 
only had two hours' sleep in two days, and have 
done a lot of digging and marching and a deal 
of ear and eye straining, watching for first signs 
of a German attack, which all their shelling was 
thought to prelude. 

It is about 11 a.m. now, so good-night, dear 
She. I long to be with you all again, once the 
war ends. I think it will be this summer some 
time; then for the rest and peace of Dedham! 
With love to the Da and Ellen, 

Henry 

March 18, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

I wrote a long letter to Mamma yesterday, so 

there remains little of news for me to tell you. It 

is only because there is, for once, nothing to do, 

and because I enjoy your letters so much, that 

I write at all. I am tired out, covered from head 

to foot with dried trench mud. Sukuna and I are 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 133 

sleeping or making tea in our little cabin, a cor- 
poral puts his head in and gives me a bunch of 
letters from home. It really seems like getting 
news from Paradise. Not that I am unhappy, but 
the contrast of it all. 

When on guard I spend hours and hours 
imagining myself home next autumn, that is, 
assuming the war ends this summer; also I talk 
with Sukuna about it all, and he knows you and 
Mamma and Papa, the horses, the polo, the 
Nickersons, the Hales, the river, and all the rest 
of Dedham so that I think he would be able to 
pass for a native, if he should ever meet another 
wandering Dedhamite. I in turn know his little 
island, two hundred miles from Suva, where his 
father is chief; the Island of Tonga, where he 
spends his time when possible; his rooms, Wad- 
ham College, Oxford, his friends there, and his 
chiefs at the Colonial Office in London, where 
he once worked as some kind of a deputy com- 
missioner from Fiji. I think I am possibly more 
fond of him than any man I know. He's quite 
as amusing as the average, better educated, and 
of course knows the world well — in the travel- 
ling sense, I mean ; also, to be comrades and share 



134 LETTERS 

everything as we do through a winter campaign 
in our section is no mean test of character. I 
don't mean to seem to brag, but really he and 
myself are the only ones who came up from Paris 
together who have not let their nerves go a bit. 
Sukuna despises petty things and keeps his sense 
of proportion just what it was. 

K ,for instance, has utterly gone to pieces. 

A piece of chocolate or a hot coffee seems to him, 
when he wants them, the greatest thing on earth. 
Twenty minutes extra on guard, because some 
one has overslept, will put him in a rage for the 
day. He is a nice fellow and I still like him, but 
as a companion I prefer the black Sukuna, who 
is of sterner stuff. 

I have an amusing anecdote about K . 

One evening we went to a deserted and wrecked 
factory to get coal. We did not know the section 
at that time, but knew that the coal was exposed 
to the German trenches. While gathering in the 
dark I saw a party of six men come up at a 
distance and begin to gather at the other end 
of the field. Two had rifles. They did not see 

us. Suddenly K dropped something and 

made a noise. Instantly we heard a bolt flung 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 135 
back and a cartridge slipped in. I pulled K 



down and we lay for a minute waiting. Then we 
heard the men talking German. As we were un- 
armed, it was no place to offer fight. On all fours 
I departed to the shelter of the building, went 
through it to the other side, and approached the 
men from the back. I soon found out they were 
in French uniforms, and it turned out they were 
Russian Jews, belonging to our company. I went 

back to K , expecting to find him quietly at 

work, and rather ashamed of my own nervous 
mental attitude. I found him with his nose in 
the coal, quite demoralized. It must be added 
that that was in the very beginning, and now he 
has better control of himself and does not trouble 
too much over shells or stray bullets. 

All this aside from the point. I propose to 
bring Sukuna home with me, if the war ends 
before September. The term at Oxford does not 
open till November, and he has much reading to 
do before it does. He is black and has Polynesian 
features. I wonder if we at home are too paro- 
chial to stand for him. He is a chief at Fiji and 
a swell in England, with a crown agent to man- 
age his money affairs, and all that sort of thing. 



136 LETTERS 

I am afraid that just the people who would run 
their heads off to meet the people in England 
that he visits, and who write and send things to 
him, would be the ones to make themselves snobs 
if he appeared in Dedham with no other recom- 
mendation than he had been my comrade in the 
Foreign Legion. It may be added that the Brit- 
ish Government want him to take command of 
a company in the Expeditionary Force that the 
Fijians are sending, but that he prefers the Le- 
gion. I know that all of us would like him. He 
is about as lazy in small ways as myself, and as 
fond of creature comforts. He swears that he 
would study hard if he came with me, and that 
would Ggg me on to write. Please advise me 
about this as soon as possible. 

I have also a bit of spleen to tell you as pri- 
vate. The more it shocks you, the better I shall 
be pleased. Warm things are nice to have and 
books are interesting to read, that is granted, but 
if you come in from four hours' sentinel duty in 
a freezing rain, with mud up to your ankles, you 
do not want to change your socks — you go out 
again in an hour — and read a book on German 
thought. You want a smoke and a drink of hot 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 137 

rum. I say this because several times I have been 
notified that there were packages for me at the 
paymaster' s office. To go there hoping for such 
things, and receive a dry book and a clean pair 
of socks, has been known to raise the most dread- 
ful profanity. Don't dwell on this. It's only 
amusing at bottom. 

I meant to say at the very beginning that 
Mother wrote me the babes were better, but it 
would have interrupted the flow of continuity. 
I suppose I have left out something I want to 
say, but can't think it up now. Oh, yes — some 
boracic arrived from Mother that was most 
gratefully received. As you may remember, I 
had already written to you for some. 
With love to all, your brother, 

Henry 

March 27, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

After writing so lengthily to Mother and Ellen, 
I was moved on at 5.30 a.m. to a new sector. 
To be honest, the letters were written from jail, 
where my row with the Sergeant had landed me, 
and I was sent forward with the other prisoners 



138 LETTERS 

to reinforce the 3^ Company. In our new posi- 
tion the Germans are more active and there was 
continual firing almost all night, also considerable 
cannonading. Little damage was done, however. 

After three days my company replaced the 
3*^ and I resumed my normal standing. I was of 
course a silly ass to allow matters to get in the 
state they did, where the first time I was caught 
with the slightest infraction I was given the max- 
imum. However, this morning another man was 
punished and made a false and silly excuse, and 
the Captain made a reference to myself as one 
who, when caught, admitted the guilt and took 
the punishment in good spirit. So I don't think 
the incident did any harm. 

The afternoon my company arrived, the Ger- 
mans let fall a flock of saucisson^ huge bombs 
flung by a sort of modem catapult. They carry 
something like a hundred pounds, so people say, 
of explosive, and made a truly horrible explo- 
sion. Several cabins were knocked down and 
some damage done in our 4^^^ section. At last our 
"75's" came to our rescue, and for ten minutes 
the air was filled with the whistling shells and 
the hard metallic bursting of those famous shells. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 139 

The German lines, after a short smoke-covered 
period, were quiet for the rest of the night. 

After five days in the trenches, we came back 
to our usual resting-place, rested yesterday, and 
are off again this afternoon for the trenches once 
more. 

A new adjutant has been placed in command 
of our section. He is an old legionary from Africa, 
though still a young man, and has the eannarks 
of a good soldier. It will be a comfort to have 
a man who knows his business over us. The 
firemen from Paris may be good drill-masters, 
but as campaign leaders they are nothing but a 
nuisance. 

I cannot tell you how much I was touched 
by your telegraphing the money, especially after 
my own stupid and despicable actions. I reiterate 
that to have you pleased with my actions now is 
an undying joy! 

Also, it is getting warmer, and I hke the life 
better. 

With love to Mother, 

Yours, 

Henry 



140 LETTERS 

April 4, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

We are now en repos at a rather comfortable 
little town. "We" in this case is the whole regi- 
ment, and we have also been put into a new army 
corps. Two days ago we were reviewed by Gen- 
eral De Castelnau, second to JofFre they say, and 
it is rumored that he was pleased with our appear- 
ance. What is more interesting is the rumor that 
we are to be joined with the African troops — the 
Tirailleurs Algeriens and Senegalle — and the 
Turcos. That would mean attack and fighting 
all the time and seems almost too good to be true. 
Trench-holding, especially when there is work 
to do and long guard hours, is neither inspiring 
nor exciting. I may add that being bombarded 
is not too attractive, either. There is nothing to 
do but wait. You can hear the whistle of the shell 
louder and louder as it comes nearer and nearer, 
then the shock, flash, and bang of the explosion; 
a breath of relief, purely instinctive, and you wait 
for the next and wonder in which direction they 
will change the range. Luckily I may say frankly 
that I do not especially mind them, and in fact, 
when on guard in advance post with Sukuna, 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 141 

we have several times blazed away with our rifles 
until we brought down a couple of 77's upon us. 
It was done to discourage the officiousness of a 
Polish Jew, who began to think himself of too 
much importance in the community. 

I don't know if I wrote that I met Victor 
Chapman in the trenches and now often see him. 
Somebody told me that he was near us in the 
Mitrailleuse section. I went down to visit him, 
and just as I got to his cabin a bomb fell back of 
it and knocked the roof in. Fortunately nobody 
was hurt, though the dirt was so driven into my 
beard that I have hardly got it out yet. 

This morning tooth-brushes, etc., arrived, and 
were much used and welcomed. I am afraid that 
I have been something of a brother to the daugh- 
ter of the horseleech, but then, I always have, so 
far as that is concerned. What is worse, I don't 
see anything in all this that points to that prom- 
ised day when I shall be self-supporting. 

As for other matters, company matters, a new 
adjutant, an old legionary of some forty years, 
has been put in command of our section, and the 
reign of the Pompier is over. This was well em- 
phasized by Sukuna and myself. We went out of 



142 LETTERS 

our cantonnement one noon when we were sup- 
posed to be consigned, and lunched at a neigh- 
boring inn. Unfortunately the Pompier Sergeant, 
who especially delights to punish me, was there. 
After lunch he amused himself by yelling at us 
for some minutes and by giving us both four days 
consigne. As the thing had not been done abso- 
lutely according to the letter of the law, we asked 
the Adjutant about it, taking the ground that 
a mistake had been made. That delightful soul 
explained that what was meant by the restric- 
tion was that it was forbidden for legionaries to 
get themselves caught out of hours, and that the 
affair was unfortunate. Ten minutes later the de- 
testable Sergeant turned up and rescinded his 
punishment, a thing he would never have done 
of his own free will. 

I express my thanks for material benefits, but 
really, long letters are just as welcome. 

With love to your boys, 

Henry 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 143 

April 10, 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

It is a warm April morning and, having spent 
three days digging second-line trenches in beastly 
weather, we are having a day of repos. Our can- 
tonnement is in a large farm, and now the yard 
is filled with soldiers, washing, cleaning clothes, 
rifles, etc. I am sitting on a chair, borrowed from 
the patronne^ beside the dunghill, and writing. 
Sukuna is in the kitchen persuading the slavey to 
make cocoa for us, and standing near me, smok- 
ing, eating an orange, and talking, is a young 
Swiss from Montmartre, putting the finishing 
touches to a clay head which he began to model 
in the trenches. Yesterday, being cold and rainy, 
everybody was gloomy and cursing; to-day all 
are cheerful, talking in Hebrew, Russian, French, 
and English, and one little man is snapping his 
fingers and singing a Spanish song. I often talk 
to him about Barcelona and Madrid, in what 
Spanish I still remember, and in return he does 
little odd jobs for me. Many of the men are 
shaving, but my beard, which is an actual beard 
by this time, remains untouched. 

I see Chapman every day now and enjoy him 



144 LETTERS 

very much. He showed me eight articles by a 
swine named Rachr, written in the "Evening 
World." If by any chance you saw them, you 
may put down the whole business from begin- 
ning to end as lies. 

I have so much to say that I really lack cour- 
age to begin. Some day you will hear my camel 
bell again and I can tell you all you want to 
know. I am not sick of the war, and burn to see 
some real fighting ; but yet, I long with a steady 
yearning to be home again with you and the Da 
and Ellen. 

It is a Sunday morning and a little church 
bell is ringing, and cocks are crowing on the dung- 
heap. As far as the war is concerned, I might as 
well be in Dedham. I hope that before long we 
will be upon the firing line again. 

Your letters are a comfort. Love to all. 

Henry 



April 23, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

The other night we were bundled out and moved 

still further back. We are now almost outside 

the sound of guns. As usual, there are conflicting 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 145 

rumors of all soits, but I hope and believe that 
before long we will be sent back to the first line 
and in a more active section. For the last three 
weeks we have done nothing and had little time 
to ourselves. We have been reviewed by Gen- 
eral \^obliterated by the censor^ put into a new 
division, brushed and polished, and in some cases 
put into new clothes; also we spent a few nights 
making quick marches to small villages close to 
the line, where in case of necessity we could be 
rushed up. 

As for further details, as they say in the Off- 
ciel Communique^ Rien a signaler. It is still fear- 
fully cold for this time of year, and my hands are 
suffering. I am only sending this because I've 
waited already too long for a tiTily comfortable 
opportunity. 

My love to you all. 

{Mailed May 8, 1915] 
Dear Mamma; 

I do hope that this arrives on the morning of 

May 19. It is all, naturally, that I can send in 

the way of birthday offering. It carries much love, 

and hopes of seeing you before the next year ends. 



146 LETTERS 

As for news. There is none of any personal 
nature. We are still in our small village, drill 
every morning, and get ourselves cussed all the 
afternoon by stupid sous-officiers. Chapman, 
Ames, and myself are in jail for having come 
back late to cantonnement^ and Sukuna and I are 
trying to transfer to the Mitrailleuse service. We 
may succeed. This so-called repos is harder than 
anything I have ever done, and gets desperately 
upon the nerves. Strangely enough, most of the 
men seem to like it; because their miserable skins 
are in safety, I suppose. In another week I shall 
go to the Colonel and try to transfer into an 
active regiment, if such a thing is possible. There 
are many talkers who are sure we are destined 
for the Dardanelles. In a way I hope we are. 
It would be desperately picturesque, and under 
D' Amade there 'd be no lack of incident. 

I suppose by now spring is well advanced in 
Dedham. Here it came all of a sudden, for now 
we go en tirailleur through the woods, all car- 
peted with flowers and with little green leaves. 
It makes me think of the Little Welds and Green 
Lodge. 

We are so far from the front that even our 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 147 

own big guns make only a distant thunder ; suf- 
ficient, however, to start the fever going in the 
blood. With all this reorganization and giving 
out of new supplies they must be going to do 
something with us. With the Grace of God, I 
hope we will put our bayonets on some night 
and receive our baptism of fire. 

I have received two gifts of cigarettes and 
some magnificent briquets^ and Hottinguer has 
said nothing about duties to pay. If you would 
address everything to me. Legionnaire H. W., 
etc., C/o H. & Co., it would obviate all trouble. 

With love and happy returns of the day in 

all senses, 

Your son, 

Henry 

I have been given a new style of capote and have 
had my picture taken therein. I have also one 
taken in the old en tenue while on guard in a 
village, and I hope to be able to send you both 
of them. 



148 LETTERS 

May 19, 1915 
Dear Mamma; 

I am writing once again from a new cantonne- 
ment^ this time after six days in the trenches. 
Thank God, the repos of our regiment is over. 
They woke us up at three one morning, — 
''^Allez hop. -Sac au dos et en route.'''* We trooped 
off on a hot, muggy morning and did thirteen 
kilometers before the grande halte., which was 
held in a small village. Here for the first time it 
was definitely known that we were bound to 
relieve a battalion of Tirailleurs Algeriens., in 
trenches some twelve kilometers fiirther on. We 
ate and lay about on the grass all the afternoon, 
and at seven heaved up our sacks once more 
and went off at the command, '' Pas de route. 
En avant marche^'' which means — a long jour- 
ney ahead. In the gathering darkness we passed 
through a couple of villages where the Tirail- 
leurs were drawn up on both sides of the streets. 
As the stars began to come out, we approached 
a black "Pelleas et Melisande" sort of forest, 
with high towering oaks and small young birches 
and beech in amongst. We passed through a high 
gateway of ancient brick, with the top of the 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 149 

coat-of-arms shot off by a shell. Inside the woods 
it was so dark we had to go in single file, each 
holding to the back of the other's pack. Big 
guns were pounding occasionally in their myste- 
rious way, and the big war rockets at times sent 
their light flickering through the trees so far over 
our heads. 

In time we came out on a brick wall pierced 
with loopholes and shattered by shells. All was 
dim in the starlight, for there was no moon. 
There the boyau began, two kilometers of it, nar- 
row and deep. Before our backs broke we came 
to our trenches, and found the Arabs already 
at the entrance, with their sacks beside them. In 
silence we threw our packs on the cabins allotted. 
Then most of the sections slept, and our squad 
took the guard. The Arabs went off wishing us 
good luck, and once more after six weeks I was 
alone under the stars — peculiar gun-broken si- 
lence — watching my section, leaning on my rifle 
watching the rockets and thinking long thoughts. 

The guard over, three hours of it, I fell into 
a heavy sleep without noticing much where, ex- 
cept that I was beside Sukuna. In the morning 
birds were singing, and we found that we were 



150 LETTERS 

in a sort of a fake section, some 600 meters from 
the enemy. These trenches were not bad, though. 
The cabins were arranged by squad, instead of 
by twos and threes. We had nine in place of six. 
I also found that Chapman and Ames were 
with their Mitrailleuse directly beside us. During 
the six days we saw much of each other. With 
Chapman I talked American politics — his father 
had just been up to Amiens to see him — Charles 
Lamb, Emerson, and other worthies. With Ames 
I tested his system on the revue de Monte Carlo, 
doing all the baUs for a week. We won between 
£100 and £1000 every night. It really is the 
most astonishing system. If you start with 2000 
and play long enough, you cannot lose. It goes 
by sections of 50 's, and you never bet more than 
40. The drawback is that you have to work the 
whole gambit sometimes to win your 50. Ames 
is the offspring of an Ames of Baltimore who, 
when cast off by his family, ascended to the inner 
parts of the Argentine and came back rich and 
married to a noble Spaniard. Ames is very flip- 
pant, ill-disciplined, amusing, and supposed to 
have the most nerve in the Mitrailleuse section, 
no mean thing to have said of any man. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 151 

The afternoon after arrival we lost a sergeant 
and two wounded in a little bombardment, but 
since then have had no trouble. 

Money has arrived from the Da, and cigar- 
ettes and unguents from yourself. I am very 
gratefril for all. 

I caught a furious cold lying out in the — 

but not the only — cold night we had. I was out 

there en patrol^ but needless to say, no Germans 

put in an appearance. They never do when I 'm 

about. 

With love to all, 

Henry 



May 30, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

Your funds and those of Aunt Alice arrived at 
the same time and were both more than welcome, 
I being entirely out and Sukuna having lost his 
last 80 francs a week before. You can hardly im- 
agine the joys of cooking eggs and fresh vege- 
tables, after an uninterrupted spell oi game lie. 
I am writing in cantonnement., having arrived 
last night from six days in the trenches. This time 
it was for our section a very peacefiil session. 



152 LETTERS 

Most of the time there was not even the crack 
of a rifle to break that peculiar brooding silence 
that pervades the inactive portions of the front. 
The night that Italy declared war, the French 
regiment on our right wing began to shout, and 
brought on a frisillade and some cannonading. 
The next afternoon there was another bombard- 
ment and several were done for. Fortunately, the 
trenches where we are, are too far apart to throw 
the big bombs they gave Dompierre, one of our 
winter billets. Here we have adequate shelters 
and shells are negligible quantities. 

Sukuna and I are now recognized patrolmen, 
and go out whenever it is the turn of our section. 
We made two this last few days, one a cumber- 
some affair of fifteen men, with the intention of 
capturing any Germans that might be prowling 
about in front of the lines. The other, seven of 
us, including two corporals and a sergeant. It was 
to carry French newspapers into the German 
lines. We could not get through the barbed 
wire, there being an incredibly bright moon, so 
we stuck them on a stick on their barbed wire. 
Although plainly visible from our own lines, the 
Germans have ignored them. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 153 

I am about to write to Debby, and will go 
into more details there. 

With love to Mother and you, 

Henry 



May 30, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

It being a very cold, gray morning and the court- 
yard of our cajitonnement being dirty — we ar- 
rived last night from the trenches — I decided 
to porte ma lade ^ and succeeded in persuading 
the doctor that I needed a day of rest. Hence, 
while others are cursing and brooming, I write 
in peace ; also I have gotten a sheaf of straw and 
am very comfy. This throws a glimpse into the 
side of military life not much advertised at pres- 
ent. A species of low and self-contained cunning 
is a thing one learns from association with old 
Legionnaires. The strange thing is that nobody 
thinks any the worse of you for these self-given 
holidays. It goes without saying that in the 
trenches one does one's work without a murmur 
and well, and thus stands in with corporals and 
sergeants. For the trench loafers the trick is not 
so easily turned. 



154 LETTERS 

Of the last six days in the lines, rien a signaler^ 
except two patrols, which lacked nothing but 
the Germans to make them successful. Between 
the lines is a broad fertile field of beet sugar 
and clover. It grows high enough to hide a man 
crawling on his stomach, and in spots, even on 
all fours. It is here that the patrols take place. 
The first was an attempted ambuscade. Fifteen 
of us, with an adjutant, a sergeant, and two 
corporals, went out and hid in a spot where 
Germans had been seen twice before. None ap- 
peared. The next night seven of us were detailed 
to carry French papers, telling of Italy's declara- 
tion of war, into the German lines. We crawled 
from 9 o'clock till 11:30, and succeeded in stick- 
ing papers on their barbed wire. They have since 
then steadily ignored them, much to our disgust. 

There is a certain fascination in all this, dull 
though it may seem. The patrol is selected in the 
afternoon. At sunset we meet to make the plans 
and tell each man his duty; then at dark our 
pockets are filled with cartridges, a drawn bay- 
onet in the belt, and our magazines loaded to the 
brim. We go along the boy an to the petit poste 
fi-om which it is decided to leave. All along the 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 155 

line the sentinels wish us good luck and a safe 
return. In the petit poste we clamp on the bay- 
onets, blow noses, clear throats, and prepare for 
three hours of utter silence. At a word from the 
chief we form line in the prearranged order. The 
sentries wish us luck for the last time, and the 
chief jumps up on the edge of the trenches and 
begins to work his way quickly through the 
barbed wire. Once outside he disappears in the 
beet weeds and one after another we follow. 

Then begins the crawl to the appointed spot. 
We go slowly, with frequent halts. Ever)^ sound 
must be analyzed. On the occasion of the 
would-be ambush, I admit I went to sleep after 
a while in the warm fresh clover where we lay. 
It was the Adjutant himself who woke me up 
with a slight hiss, but as he chose me again next 
night, he does not seem to have thought it a 
serious matter. 

Then, too, once home we do not mount guard 
all the rest of the night, and are allowed to sleep 
in the morning; also there are small, but pleas- 
ing discussions of the affair, and above all the 
hope of some night suddenly leaping out of the 
darkness hand to hand with the Germans. 



156 LETTERS 

It's time now that I began cooking Sukuna's 
and my midday meal of eggs, so good-bye, my 
dear, and love to all. 

Henry 



June 4, 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

This afternoon we go up to the trenches; hence, 
peace and time to write in the morning. It is 
a dull, gray, hot morning, and I am sitting on 
a big pile of freshly cut clover that smells of 
pastoral ease. Your so-called hero is for the 
moment "ver)^ calm." In the distance we can 
hear the clarions practising a march tune, but not 
even the distant thunder of big guns speaks of 
war. 

The other morning the company was on a 
digging coj'vee in a battered village near the cha- 
teau, when the Germans let fly 912 shells of all 
calibre in the space of forty minutes. Their lack 
of munitions is less noticeable here than in the 
papers, but they have at least kept very still since 
then. The casualties were two or three men 
and six horses. It does not seem as though there 
were any way of ending this rabbit-warren war. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 157 

Nevertheless, I have an inward conviction that 
it will end in September or October. It does not 
seem credible that humanity will go through an- 
other winter campaign. 

Victor Chapman, at his family's suggestion, 
has put in application for transfer to the Ameri- 
can Flying Corps, but I am fond of the 3^ de 
marche^ for all its grumbling and cursing; and 
as long as you are agreeable and our Captain 
stays with us, I too shall stay. There are obvious 
drawbacks to being a soldier of second class, but 
I was always a runner after the picturesque, and 
in good weather am not one who troubles much 
where I sleep, or when, and the picturesque is 
ever with us. 

It so happened that the Captain was pleased 
with our bringing the papers to the Germans 
and gave the seven of us f. 20 to prepare a little 
fete. What an unforgettable supper! 

There was the Sergeant, Zampanedes, a freak 
of classic type, who won his spurs at Zanina and 
his stripes in the Bulgarian campaign. Since, 
he has been a medical student in Paris; that to 
please his family, for his heart runs in different 
channels, and he studies music and draws in 



158 LETTERS 

his spare time. (From the amount he knows, I 
should judge that "spare" time predominated.) 
We first fell into sympathy over the Acropolis, 
and cemented a true friendship over Turkish 
war songs and Byzantine chants, which he sings 
with a mournful romanticism that I never heard 
before. 

Then there was Nicolet, the Company Clar- 
ion, serving his twelfth year in the Legion, an in- 
credible little Swiss, tougher than the drums of 
the fore and aft, and wise as Nestor in the futile 
ruses of the regiment. 

The Corporal, Mortens, a legionary wounded 
during the winter and cited for bravery in the 
order of the army. He was a commercial trav- 
eller in his native grand duchy of Luxemburg, 
but decided some five years ago to leave his debts 
and troubles behind him and become a Petit 
Zephyr de la Legion Etrangere. 

Sudic, a butcher firom the same grand duchy, 
a man of iron physically and morally, and men- 
tally unimportant. 

Covalieros, a Greek of Smyrna, who might 
have spread his silks and laces at the feet of a 
feudal princess and charmed her with his shining 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 159 

eyes and wild gestures into buying beyond her 
means. He also has been cited for reckless gal- 
lantry. 

Sukuna and myself brought up the list. We 
were all in good spirits and flattered, and I, be- 
ing in funds, put in f. 10 and Sukuna the same. 
Some of us drank as deep as Socrates, and we 
ate a mammoth salad under the stars. Nicolet and 
Mortens talked of the battalion in the Sahara, 
and Zampanedes sang his Eastern songs, and 
even Sukuna was moved to Tongan chants. Like 
iEneas on Polyphemus' isle, I feel that some 
years hence, well out of tune with all my sur- 
roundings, I shall be longing for the long warm 
summer days in northern France, when we slept 
like birds under the stars, among congenial 
friends, when no man ever thought of the mor- 
row, and you changed horizons with each new 
conversation. 

This time our company is stationed in the vil- 
lage, a guard and corvee. It is a bore that the 
companies take in turn and I have dreaded it. 
Now Sukuna, Covalieros, and myself are ap- 
pointed to the post of observation on the roof, 
and unless a shell blows us all to glory, we do 



1 60 LETTERS 

nothing but mount guard at night, being exempt 

from all corvee. 

With love to the Da, 

Your son, 

Henry 



June 5 , 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

I have just posted a long one to Mother, so there 
is nothing to be said, but as I am in the obser- 
vation post at night and have nothing to do days, 
and as Sukuna is still obstinately asleep, the spirit 
moves again. 

Our company is on guard in the deserted 
village belonging to the chateau behind our 
trenches, and I am sitting on a junk of white 
cornice stone, leaning against the battered Hos- 
pice. Not a floor or an interior wall remains of 
what was once a fine old abbey or monastery of 
some kind, only the bare brick walls and the 
coat-of-arms over the main gate; all else is splin- 
tered, twisted, burnt, and shattered by the shells; 
the debris slops over and fills half the little 
brick-walled fruit garden. The ruin is completed 
by huge piles of earth flung up by the chambres 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 161 

d'^abris in the making.The ground is pot-marked 
by shells which have dropped there. 

It is a bright morning, with a fresh breeze 
stirring at times, and all about the grounds a 
swarm of men are working in the usual dilatory 
way, picking up rubbish, finishing the chambres 
(Tahris^ and carr^^ing big logs for the same. A 
German aeroplane is somewhere over our lines, 
for I can hear the batteries shooting at it. You 
soon learn to tell an aerial shooting match from 
an actual bombardment. Here, of course, we live 
in the depths of the strongest cellars, which, filled 
with straw, make a better cantonnement than we 
usually get. The people who are doing the work 
naturally grumble a bit and wish they were in 
the trenches, where, by the way, you are if any- 
thing a little safer, but we three observers have 
time to see the mournfiil beauty of it all and are 
content to stay here for six days. 

In case of bombardment all the sentries come 
into the cellars and we mount to our shell-splin- 
tered, unprotected roof. Hence our present free- 
dom from bickering or snarling sous-officiers. I 
am low enough to rather hope for one. We 
might fall in for some kind of a medal, if they 



162 LETTERS 

knocked the roof down without blowing us up. 
I really believe that if a man is destined for a 
hit, he will get it regardless of where he may 
be. The other day a mitrailleur was killed by an 
eclat that came through the narrow door of his 
cabin while he was reading the paper in supposed 
security. 

If you ever have the ambition to come as far 
as Paris again, I hope you will visit the Meis- 
soniers in the Louvre. They achieve the very 
spirit of soldiers on campaign. 

The other night, while still in cantonment, we 
had an alerte. Of course rumors of it preceded 
the order, and everybody got ready and then 
sat about in the gathering darkness. The Com- 
mandant's orderly, who plays first violin at the 
Cafe de Paris, brought out his violin and the Ad- 
jutant played the accompaniment. Some thirty or 
forty soldiers and an old hag with three tiny, 
dirty children were the audience, and the two 
played the same tunes that danced Maurice into 
fame. The Adjutant, a well-born man whom 
fourteen years in the Legion have turned into the 
most blase soul on earth (though the iron has 
entered into his heart), with his firm-featured. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 163 

weak, indomitable face, and the half-caste violin- 
ist in his cavalry gaiters, and the crowd of us 
standing about and beating time in spite of our- 
selves, brought Meissonier with a rush to my 
mind, that made me reverence him. 

With love to Lee and Famie, — and for 
Heaven's sake, don't bring them up too cramped. 
What they lose in shekels they will more than 
gain in treasures of the mind. Tell them early 
about Burton, and let him early be one of their 

heroes. 

With love, 

Henry 



June 10, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

This is designed to arrive on July 3, and to let 
you know that I am more than ever before, 
perhaps, full of thoughts and longings for 
you and Mother. Next year we may all be to- 
gether. 

We are still in our usual inactivity, and I have 
no Prussian helmets or other trophies to send. I 
have sent Aunt Alice photos of the village where 
we enter the boyau to go to our trenches. For 



164 LETTERS 

the last six days our company has been mount- 
ing guard there. 

I wrote Ellen how Sukuna and I fell in for 
the job of observateur. It was decided after the 
first night that the roof where the post was situ- 
ated was insufficient. Shortly after finishing my 
letter to Ellen, the Captain came along and sent 
us out to hunt up a better place. We at once 
seized on the belfry of the ruined church and 
found that, though in a terribly dilapidated state, 
it would still bear our weight on the very top. The 
view from there was excellent. At night-time we 
mounted for the first time, accompanied by the 
Russian Corporal in charge of us. He turned out 
to be what we 'd call a "married man," mean- 
ing one with whom the thoughts of wife and 
family weigh more than the "lure of danger." 
The wretched man protested bitterly, but we had 
already boosted up straw into the room under 
the belfiy, and there was nothing for it but to let 
us sleep there. Not a shot was fired all night 
long, and the night after we went up in the for- 
tified tower which the artillery had just given up. 

To the north of us the French have made a 
successfial attack, and to the south there has been 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 165 

terrible rumbling of heavy artillery. I suppose 
some day it will have to be our turn. When it 
does, everything being comparative, I am more 
and more sure that I shall be able to give a good 
account of myself 

Last night a torrent of rain fell and there was 
a meter of water in the trenches. 

With love and hopes for many happy returns. 

Henry 

June 19, 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

In a letter lately received from Ellen she won- 
dered if I was in the Dardanelles expedition. By 
now you must know pretty well where I have 
been — for the last month. By the time this 
reaches you I hope, and half expect, to be in the 
region north of Arras, where the 2 de marche^ 
stiffened with old Legionnaires^ fought its way 
to fame — and sadly, to practical annihilation. It 
held the centre, being flanked on one side by a 
regiment of chasseurs and on the other by one 
of tirailleurs (Algerian) . After fifty minutes of 
pas de charge, three Gennan trenches were taken. 
Then the chasseurs and the tirailleurs quit — 



166 LETTERS 

according to the story — and the Legion went on 
alone and took the fourth. As our regiment is 
something below half strength and there are no 
more recruits to fill up, there seems some prob- 
ability in the rumor that we will be sent up there 
and the two cast into one. 

As for news here, it is not of the brightest. The 
other night the Germans crept up in the grass 
and carried off two men of our third section, 
who were working some thirty meters beyond 
our line. Sentinels were supposed to be posted 
beyond the line of workers, and Sukuna and I 
were on a patrole sent out to guard against just 
such doings. The disgrace did not fall upon us 
two, we were under orders and could only do 
as told; but such things rankle, and I was so 
proud of our company — much the best of the 
regiment. 

The patrole consisted of four men and a ser- 
geant of the first section and four men of ours — 
the second. We were told to be ready to leave 
at 9:30 from the petit poste of the first section. 
At the appointed time we met, and with no in- 
structions at all scrambled out of the trench, and 
in close, disordered formation began to climb 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 167 

through the barbed wire. I happened to be next 
one of our men, a Russian peasant, quick, reso- 
lute, and conscientious — a good patrolman. We 
exchanged glances. " // va arriver une malheur^"* 
he said, and without an order went off to right 
wing. Sukuna and I took the left. The rest scram- 
bled on in the middle after the Sergeant. By the 
time we had passed through the entanglements, 
so much noise had been made that Germans 
working in fi-ont of their lines — cutting grass, 
by the sound — were called in, or at any rate 
stopped working. 

We blundered on in this way some thirty 
meters, and then halted and formed a sort of ru- 
dimentary line of tirailleurs. No directions were 
given as to what to do in case of attack — which 
was more than probable, as it was evident the 
Germans had heard us and as most of the men 
walked upright. During this halt we thought we 
heard a rustling towards the right wing, but in 
our own centre several angry disputes were going 
on and nothing definite could be made out. Then 
on we went again in the same fashion towards 
the middle of the field which divides the trenches, 
and after a time lay down and, I believe, consid- 



168 LETTERS 

ered ourselves in ambush. There we stayed some 
hour and a half, during which the Germans sent 
up fusees every two or three minutes, and dur- 
ing which the grass on all sides was filled with 
the subdued gentle rustling of men crawling, as 
a patrolman should. 

Our people kept up a brief dispute in whispers, 
and a nineteen-year-old child next to Sukuna 
wiggled his feet obstinately, and told us not to 
be afraid, when we remonstrated. Naturally, no 
notice was taken of the signs of the times, and in 
fact nothing definite could be made out. There we 
lay, like sheep ready for the butcher, the minor- 
ity of us waiting with cocked rifles for the mo- 
ment when the Germans, having cut us off, would 
open fire, and with the expectation of being shot 
by one of our own men in the confusion that 
such an event would have brought on. As you 
know, I am given to undue optimism, but neither 
Sukuna nor I expected to come back that night. 
At midnight we did troop back in perfect safety, 
and found that the Germans had let us alone, 
gone in behind us — from the right wing — and 
taken two of the unarmed workers we were there 
to guard. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 169 

If we go to Arras, according to percentage, 
I will very likely get hit. Personally I don't for 
an instant dream of such a thing, and have the 
same conviction I always did have. If I do, 
please don't come over. I will see you again any 
way in a few months now, and over here you 
could do nothing but torture the Da and make 
yourself sick. 

I love you. Mother, but I mean this, espe- 
cially the part about there being no need to 

worry. 

Henry 



July 4, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

This is late for the 16*^^, but it has the same mes- 
sages as though it were earlier. At the time I 
should have been writing, I was at least thinking, 
so morally it is the same. At the same time I was 
marching (or most of the time), so physically it 
was impossible. 

Long ago, during the bleak bombarded days 
in Capy, the Russians in the regiment set up a 
petition to get out of it (each hoping to himself 
to fmd a loophole of escape during the change of 



1 70 LETTERS 

regiments) . The other day, while we were peace- 
flilly in the trenches of Tilloloy, the petition 
bore fruit. Now they are to go either to Russia 
or to a French regiment — like Ahab, they leave 
unwept — and the Belgians are going, too. The 
Italians have already gone, and the Deuxieme 
marche is either under the ground or in hospi- 
tal and cannot give us reinforcement, so we are 
again on our way back from the front. 

We were relieved by a French regiment at 
9:30 of a very stormy evening, just as the rain, 
which had been only an intermittent drizzle dur- 
ing the day, burst into a near-tropical down- 
pour. Wet through and covered with mud to the 
knees, we started for some vague place the other 
side of Montdidier. It was only eighteen milli- 
meters of march, but we put the whole night into 
it, arriving at 3:30 of a damp, misty morning. 
During the night the rain stopped and we walked 
ourselves nearly dry. 

By a new arrangement five men in each sec- 
tion were told off to put their sacks in the wagon 
and to walk at the rear of the section and carry 
sacks of those who otherwise would have fallen 
out. I was one of the so-called bon marcheurs^ 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 171 

and excited myself to a great degree of dried 
spleen by carrying the sacks of lazy, but healthy, 
Jews. 

After a day of rest we took the road again 
and did twenty-five more kilometers. It speaks 
well for the training you get at the front, for I can 
truthftiUy say that I was not a bit tired, though 
I carried my own sack, which is a heavy one. 

I hope nobody will shake the wise finger and 
say I should not have grumbled about the Jews. 
Those sorts of jobs go in turns, and Sukuna took 
my place in the natural course of events. Papa 
has gathered the impression that because I often 
write that I am in the boite^ I am not well looked 
upon by superiors. That does not follow in the 
least. The Foreign Legion is not a bit like Gro- 
ton School or even Harvard College — and in 
my opinion has a far better spirit. Rules are 
many and strict. You break one and get caught. 
You make no excuses and are given a punish- 
ment. There is no ill-feeling on either side. At 
least it has been that way since the Adjutant — 
who has been promoted Lieutenant — came to 
us as Chief of Sections. At Capy, under the yoke 
of the Pompiers, I was given to frequent and ill- 



1 72 LETTERS 

concealed rage and scorn. It is a point of satis- 
faction with me that the sv/inewho used to do the 
cursing has, in spite of very general promotion, 
remained in his grade and been kicked out of our 
section by the Lieutenant, and is now as meek 
as Moses. With the Captain and all the Legiona- 
ries, I am very much bien vu, and nearly always 
am called on for patrols, observation posts, etc. 

It is my opinion that shortly the regiment will 
be broken up and the engagements broken. I 
do not want to become naturalized French and 
go in a line regiment. Neither do I want to 
leave the war, or to take a three-year engagement 
in the Legion. The American Ambulances see 
nothing, in spite of what they write home. I do 
very much want to join the Aviation Corps. 
They have been flying at the front. I shall write 
to this effect to the Da and explain things flilly. 
I suppose I should need about ;^1000, which is 
a nuisance. Also, if things move quickly, I may 
have to cable before these letters reach you. 

With lots of love. Dear, and many soft mem- 
ories of past 16*^^ and hopes for future ones, 

Henry 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 173 

[July 4, 1915] 
Dear Papa; 

About a week ago I received a welcome note 
from Hottinguer, saying he had received funds 
to my account. But there was an unpleasant ad- 
dition to the effect that of the f 128.50 he had 
kept f. 125 for himself for charges he had paid 
in postage, etc., for me. Hence I have taken £lO 
out of my letter of credit — or at least begun the 
process. 

I don't want to seem stupidly extravagant, 
but really in the army here money does make an 
enormous difference. Now that summer is here 
it means that you can buy eggs, fresh vegetables, 
etc., even fresh meat in some places. Things cost 
very much, eggs 3 sous apiece, and all that sort 
of thing. I don't merely throw it away, except 
for the fact that the company food is amply 
nutritious and I do not need cauliflowers, aspar- 
agus, macaroni, and eggs. 

Now for more seriously depressing news. I 
have just written Ellen how and why we have 
been again called back from the front. It is my 
opinion that we shall shortly be disbanded and 
all the duration of the engagements broken. In 



174 LETTERS 

that case I am anxious to join the U. S. Avia- 
tors, who are now at the front and have been 
north of Arras. I suppose I should have to sup- 
port myself, and it would mean about ^1000 to 
see me to the end of the war — which will occur 
in November — and get me home afterwards. 
I hate to ask for the money, and naturally put 
myself entirely according to your advice. The 
facts will be as follows: 

I can become naturalized French — which I 
do not want to do — and join a second-rate line 
regiment, one which will never see any more 
fighting than we did. Or sign a three-year aifair 
in the Legion and hope to get to the Darda- 
nelles eventually. Or the Ambulance — which I 
know means nothing. I know a Sophomore driv- 
ing one of the Morgan- Harjes ambulance cars, 
who thought himself quite a hero because he had 
two or three times gone up to bombarded vil- 
lages to cart away the wounded. One of them 
was the village where we used to go for repos. 

I have just time to give this to a man who is 

going to Montdidier. 

Love to Mother and yourself, 

Henry 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 175 

[Jlbout July 17, 1915] 
Dear Papa: 

By this time I suppose the drafts have arrived, 
and any way there is no good in mincing mat- 
ters. I was given two days' permission in Paris, 
as an American citizen, and at the first sight of a 
big city went quite off my head and blew in every 
cent I could get hold of. If you had been in Paris 
lately and knew the enthusiastic reception with 
which the permissionaires were greeted, and the 
exceptional tolerance from all parties given to the 
troops of the African Army, Zouaves^ Tirailleurs^ 
Chasseurs^ and Legionnaires^ you would know 
that there was some excuse for my piggish pro- 
ceedings. A thin one, for I personally have done 
nothing to deserve any ovation. At any rate, I 
had a time that I shall never forget. I am sin- 
cerely sorry for it, and am now doing the pen- 
ance of regimental life on one sou a day quite 
contentedly. 

Many people with broad hems to their gar- 
ments say that the Legion makes a brute of a 
man; but don't blame my proceedings on the 
Legion. I have done the same thing before, as 
you know, and the Legion is in no way to blame. 



176 LETTERS 

Think only that, when all the other troops said 
the thing was impossible, the Legion took not one 
line, as planned, but four, and was not stopped 
then, though more than half the officers and men 
were down at the taking of Souchez. 

I have all this to say about the Legion, because 
now I am in it — the real, hard, incredible thing 
— what with the Russians, Italians, and Belgians 
. . . Z de marche so we were . . . brought up to 
the full effective with professionals from Saida — 
Regiment Etranger. 

After coming back from Paris we did two 
days' desultory drill, with constant rumors of the 
change coming, and then suddenly at the com- 
pany rapport one afternoon the Captain came 
into the square formed by the sections, wearing 
his best jacket, with the big Officer of the Legion 
d'Honneur medal on his breast, more red in the 
face than ever, and with his mustachios twirling 
angrily. Old Moreno roared out his " Garde a 
vous'*'' with a tinge of break in his hard old voice, 
and the Captain said '''' Repos'''' right away, and 
stood for an instant looking at us. Then in the 
formal military way he told us . . . when and 
where we would entrain on the morrow, details 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 177 

as to pay, etc. Then he began to speak of the 
regiment, how it had never been tried, but how 
he had never doubted it, and what a comfort it 
had been to him ever since the winter months to 
have a little nucleus of men who always could 
be trusted to volunteer for anything hard or 
dangerous, and could be trusted to do it well 
and intelligently. He ended up with the bad news 
that he was to leave us, " effected " to a French 
regiment. For twenty-five years he said he had 
served . . . and now to take off the flying wing 
of the Foreign Legion, even to go into any other 
regiment on earth, was a terrible blow to him. 
At any rate, though he could not be there to see 
us and help us, he hoped that the Volunteers 
of Paris would hold up their end with their 
older brothers, who had fought so gloriously in 
Arras. We were all fighting for the right cause, 
and that after all was the most important. If after 
the war any of us should ever see him an)^vhere, 
he hoped that we would take a drink together as 
two good Legionnaires, 

Then he walked out, and not half a dozen had 
the voice to cry, " Vive Captain Escall! " By his 
justice, gallantry, and wonderflil constantly good 



178 LETTERS 

spirits this most unemotional of men had so eaten 
himself into our hearts that many wept frankly 
at the idea of leaving him, and those of us who 
did not had a hard time not to. 

The next morning after the Captain had made 
his good-bye speech and we were lined up be- 
hind the fessos waiting for the order, " *Shc au 
dos^^'' he came down the line and shook us all 
by the hand. When he came to our squad, with 
Corporal Mortens, Sukuna, Covalieros, and that 
crowd, everybody being already much strung 
up, he embraced us one and all. I have not had 
the same feeling of desolating woe at leaving any- 
body since the days when I used to say good-bye 
to Mother and take the train to Groton, finding 
all lonely in the world. 

Escall had punished me, but there had never 
been any discussion about the justice thereof nor 
any respect lost on either side, and if you only 
knew him, it would be a pleasure to you that this 
no mean judge of nature liked and respected me 
in spite of certain obvious failings. I shall be 
proud of the fact all the rest of my life. Escall 
knew exactly what happened in Paris, too. 

As for the other details, we are now in the first 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 179 

Moroccan Division, the best one in the French 

Army, and though now they are reforming after 

their losses around Arras, we are bound to be 

called upon to do the same again. If anything 

happens to me, you can be sure that it was on 

the way to victory, for these troops have been 

. . . but never beaten. 

With love to Mother and Ellen. 

Henry 

2nd de ?narche—l^^^ Etrang'^re 
Battalion A, Comfiagnie I 



\_Postmarked August 3 , 1915] 
Dear Mamma: 

I have received at least live letters from you and 
two from the Da. They are the greatest of bless- 
ings and come into my weary world most wel- 
come. The two regiments being cast into one and 
the whole division being brought up to strength, 
etc., goes wearily on, and in the meantime our 
soldiers do *''' A droit par quatre'*'* and other sec- 
tion drill until it seems as though my mind would 
go. Having slopped over more than a little dur- 
ing my two days' permission in Paris was an ill 
wind that had some good effects, for I feel that 



180 LETTERS 

I have had my good thne and can well afFord 
to do my service and not kick against the pricks 
to any but you. Here I am on good behavior — 
carry a full sack when I know how to pad one 
with straw in the most cunning way, and all that 
sort of thing. 

Papa writes Bob Stevenson is going to a train- 
ing camp where they are to march five or six 
miles per day with full complement of transport 
wagons. It is not my place to set up as an au- 
thority, having done nothing at all in the way 
of fighting, but if the marches were sixteen to 
seventeen miles, half the wagons broken down, 
much rain, trenches to dig, etc., they might gain 
some actual idea of what war is — not an expe- 
ditionary campaign, but the sort of thing they 
would have to face if America was invaded. Still 
I suppose that can never happen, and there is no 
use giving people sore feet and aching backs for 
nothing. 

The other day we were waked at 2 a.m., and 
at 3 sent off in a pouring rain for some indefi- 
nite place across the mountains for a divisional 
review. We went off slowly through the wet 
darkness, but about dawn the sun came out and. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 181 

as is usual with the Legion, eveiybody cheered 
up, and at 7 a.m. we arrived at the parade 
ground after fifteen kilometers in very good spir- 
its. The two regiments of Zouaves from Africa 
were already drawn up. We formed up beside 
them, and then came the two tirailleurs regi- 
ments, their colors with them, then the second 
Etrangere^ two thousand strong, and finally a 
squadron oi Chasseurs d^ Afrique.Wo. all stacked 
arms and lay about on the grass till 8:30. Sud- 
denly the Zouave bugles crashed out sounding 
the " Garde a vous^^'' and in two minutes the divi- 
sion was lined up, every man stiff as a board — 
and all the time the bugles ringing angrily from 
up the line, and the short staccato trumpets of 
the chasseurs answering from the other extrem- 
ity. The ringing stopped suddenly, and the voices 
of the colonels crying '''' Bayonnettes aux Canons'''' 
sounded thin and long drawn out and were 
drowned by the flashing rattle of the bayonets 
going on — a moment of perfect silence, and then 
the slow, courtly-sounding of the ^^ General! 
General! qui passe!''"' broken by the occasional 
crash as regiment after regiment presented arms. 
Slowly the General rode down the lines, with 



182 LETTERS 

the two Brigadiers and a Division General in his 
suite. 

Then came the dejile. The Zouaves led off, 
their bugles playing ^^ As tu vu la casquette^ la 
casquette.^'' Then the tirailleurs^ playing some 
march of their own, slow and fine, the bugles 
answering the scream of the Arab reed flutes as 
though Loeffler had led them. Then the Legion, 
the second Etrangere swinging in beside us at the 
double, and all the bugles crashed out with the 
Legion marching song, 

'' Tiens -voila du boudin fiour les Beiges ^ 
Y en a fiour les Beiges y en a^ 
Parce qu'ils sont des bons soldats. 

Pour les Suisses y en a et les Alsatien- 
Lorraines,^^ etc. 

On and on went the bugles playing that light, 
slangy tune, some of the verses of which would 
make Rabelais shudder, and the minor varia- 
tions of which bring up pictures of the Legion 
marching with thin ranks in foreign, blazing 
lands, and the drums of which, tapping slowly, 
sound like the feet of the regiment scrunch- 
ing through desert sand. It was all very glori- 
ous to see and hear, and to wind up, the chas- 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 183 

seurs went by at the gallop — going off to their 
quarters. 

To wind up the day, the Colonel took us home 
straight over the mountain — fourteen kilometers 
over mountain-goat tracks. When we got in at 
3:30 p.m., having had nothing to eat but a bit 
of bread, three sardines, and a finger of cheese, 
few of the men were really exhausted. It was then 
I got your letter about the training camp. Really 
it did make me feel a bit superior, and made 
me think less than ever of our military system — 
and if possible, more of the French. I don't think 
any other army would have done it on the food 
ration we did, and even Sukuna admitted that it 
was doubtfi.ll if many English regiments would 
have done it under any conditions. 

As for news, that 's all I have, but do continue 
to write me frequently, even if there is nothing 
to say. Here in this division I feel incredibly far 
fi-om home. 

Love to Ellen and the boys and the Da. 

There is a rumor that we may go to Morocco, 
as things are going badly there, but I don't 
believe it; we cannot be replaced here. 



184 LETTERS 

August A^, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

I am sending enclosed in this a little ring. It is 
not supposed, by myself at least, to be a thing of 
beaut}", but it is interesting. It is made of alu- 
minum from the fiise of a German or Austrian 
shellhead picked up at Tilloloy and made by an 
old Legionnaire with a little file he stole some- 
where. How he made the little holes in it I don't 
know, but he worked for some time, and gave it 
to me because I did him a good turn one night, 
when he was about to be arrested by the patrole 
for being out late at night in a state of obvious 
and noisy drunkenness. 

I wish I could make you see the man in the 
flesh ; people like him appear only, as far as my 
experience goes, in the Foreign Legion — a Rou- 
manian from Constantinople, speaking Turk, 
Greek, Roumanian, French, a little English, 
Spanish, and Arab; about six feet two inches, 
and very skinny and pale, with a half-dozen long 
hairs on each side of his upper lip, about the 
color and consistency of a big tomcat's whiskers. 
He has more useless accomplishments than can 
be stated. He imitates cats, dogs, and mules from 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 185 

Senegal — a peculiarly noisy breed — and can 
use his feet with the same force and accuracy. 
When he thinks drill is getting a little dull, he 
amuses the whole section by going through the 
motions as though he were a monkey, and when 
the Sergeant begins to scream, quotes accurately 
fi'om the theory book how the thing should be 
done. He was once a sergeant himself — was 
broken — is now first-class, but too lazy to go 
to the class of eleves corporeaiix. He can also 
pour a litre of wine into his mouth, holding the 
bottle a foot away, and get it all down without 
spilling a drop. He is also an expert tailor, wash- 
erman, rifle-shot, etc., and was originally a law 
student in Constantinople. He has a fund of comic 
stories, falls in occasional glooms when ofl' by 
himself, and sings Turk songs, gets drunk once 
a month, and stays so for three days. 

There is something so incongruous about your 
wearing his ring that I don't suppose you will, 
but the man is absolutely honest, which is more 
than many are under like circumstances, and even 
when drunk will never ask a sou from any one. 
He washes clothes, cleans rifles, mends capotes^ 
shaves people, cuts hair, greases boots, and 



186 LETTERS 

mounts guard for others until he has enough. 
Also he is a brave man, and always cheerful when 
it rains and the marches are long and the sacks 
heavy. 

The corpora/ d'' ordinaire is screaming " Aupo- 
tales ;'^'^ which means that I must go and peel 
potatoes, so good-bye, dear, and love to the 
boys. 

There is no news. 

Mgust 6, 1915 
Dear Papa: 

News from Hottinguer of 330 francs has arrived 

just now and is more welcome than ever. Many 

thanks to you and Mother and Ellen and Alfred. 

As to the details you wanted, they always 

send a letter saying that they have received for 

my account, etc., etc. I always ask to have it 

forwarded in cash, which they promptly do; it 

is, I think, the only way. Drafts direct I should 

have to send back to them and run the risk 

of their being lost, whether registered or not. 

Parcels I receive at weird intervals; I think 

five altogether — three of chocolates and two of 

cigarettes. 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 187 

Sukuna, by the way, is becoming as dependent 
on boracic acid as is Mother herself. 

The only kick I have about mail is that" Life" 
stopped coming some time ago — after four or 
five numbers, in fact. I much enjoyed it, though 
I could not agree with Mr. Martin's high opinion 
of Wilson as President. His famous note did not 
seem to me any better worded than some of his 
Mexican sayings, and as he never backed up 
those, I did not for a minute think that anything 
but the whirlwind of public sentiment would 
make him stick to this one. As long as the people 
" stand behind the President,' ' they will stay where 
the immediate profit leads. I am, of course, in no 
position to judge those things, and only splutter 
a bit because I remember the unwholesome posi- 
tion I was in last August, when there could be 
no feeling of pride in announcing my nationality. 
Here people seem well disposed towards Ameri- 
cans and many individuals are doing fine work, 
but as a Government I am ashamed to say that 
I really and truly feel that we are contemptible, 
and that it is Wilson's talk and shilly-shally that 
makes us so. We have an expression over here 
for the souls who never can take a leap at the 



188 LETTERS 

Rubicon and yet are fine talkers — here in the 
Legion, but I shan't obtrude it on you. I do wish 
you would write me at some length what you 
and your fi'iends do think of our attitude. 
With much love to you all, 

Henry 

August 13, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

I have received Mother's of July 19 and 25 and 
can think of nothing but one quotation there- 
fi-om : " Our last note is off, and now if Germany 
persists, we shall have to take action." Since then, 
according to Paris newspapers, another Amer- 
ican boat has been blown up. When will people 
perceive that Wilson will never do anything but 
talk, and realize the Devil's role that his calm 
views, high principles, and endless staying open 
to the other side's point of view has played in 
Mexico ? 

I suppose as usual that all this will be put down 
as childish and unconsidered, but save this letter 
as you did the one about the Illusions Perdus^ 
and you will see I am right later on. I feel more 
bitterly about Wilson and his bourgeois — in 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 189 

Balzac sense, not the ordinary French one — 
virtues than I ever did about any public thing 
before. 

As for local news, as usual there is rien a 
sig'naler. We are still refitting in this d — d vil- 
lage, and rumors fly about three times a day. As 
for myself, I keep out of trouble and stand well 
with all parties, and the mountains are beautiflil, 
and you may bathe in ice-cold mountain streams, 
and see all Switzerland rising like the pillars of 
Heaven out of the haze over the French low- 
lands. Nevertheless, I should leave to-night for 
Lyons and liberation, Marseilles and the Dar- 
danelles, or the fi'ont and trenches with an equal 
cheer. We march, clean rifles, present them and 
ourselves and our linen and our reserve rations 
till the grasshopper weighs like a cross and the 
men grumble and do it so stupidly that it's worse 
than the infernal barking of the Sergeant. 

We will probably go to the trenches shortly. 
If so, so much the better; but if we are liberated, 
I think I shall dash home by the first boat and 
stay there a month or six weeks and get my 
" Campaign with the Legion" written, and then 
try to get back again in the Aviation or Am- 



190 LETTERS 

bulance, or anything that Papa approves. This 
seems too ideally happy ever to come true — 
worse than that, I dreamt the whole thing last 
night, and my dreams never come true. 

If we are put into French regiments to finish 
a year's service, as the latest has it, I shall ask for 
the Legion or the Zouaves at the Dardanelles. 
It will at least make a change, for it appears that 
there are no dull secteurs such as usually fall to 
my fate, and to march in triumph into Constan- 
tinople! The Golden Horn still seems to have 
the mysterious fascination for me that it had 
before I knew it — alone of any place I have ever 
wanted to go to and have seen. 

Some fifteen years hence, if I and you are not 
already dried up — I suspect you of that possi- 
bility, and have a fear of it myself — you must 
pack up and let me cart the whole family, espe- 
cially the boys, about for a year. You are quite 
capable of doing the guide to St. Paul's and 
other interesting parts of London and Paris, but 
somebody who was there when he was young 
ought to take them to Mexico, thence by the 
Spanish boat to Spain and Mallorca, thence to 
Russia by the Nord express to Petrograd, Mos- 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 191 

cow, Odessa, Bucharest, Constantinople, a long 
stop, and end up with the Egyptian mail to the 
Piraeus and the spring morning on the Acropolis, 
to watch the maidens of the Caryatids' porch in 
everlasting beauty against a blue Mediterranean 
sky. 

I know as well as you the futility of this kind 
of dreams and that it leads to no benefit, and 
that some one who was not there in his youth 
would have to pay for the party. Not one neces- 
sarily who stayed at home at the grindstone all 
his life, but one who has kept his interests there 
and not been out searching for interest where he 
found it. 

All of which means that I am bored to death 
and make up for it by dreaming about past and 
present and future. The last looks bad. I don't 
see as any of this campaign has done anything 
towards that hoped-for day when I shall be cap- 
able of earning my own living in the way the 
Da thinks I ought to. I suppose the poor Da 
realizes this and it adds to his worries; then, 
the more I gloom about present and fliture, the 
more I dream about Dedham and the happy 
days there with you and Mother and the Da, 



192 LETTERS 

and long for another session of it with no worries 

in the wind. 

Good-bye, dear. With love, ^ 

^ ' ' Henry 

\The censor's stamp contains the word " Belfort," 
implying that he was near there.'] 

[August, 1915] 
Dear Mamma: 

We are on the move again, and I have hopes 
that the repos is over. To be sure we are not up 
to anything very exciting as yet, only trench- 
digging in a section duller than any as yet seen, 
but once out of the infernal village, I have hopes 
that we will not go back there. 

As usual we left at 2 a.m. and marched under 
a full moon through a misty sunrise and on into 
the early heat of the morning, doing twenty-seven 
kilometers. Then we stopped for the night and 
went on at 1 a.m. the next day, the Captain wear- 
ing his Moroccan burnous and looming ghostly 
white at the head of the company. We did thirty- 
one kilometers, much of it up and down steep 
hills, and some of the men got sore feet and fell 
out. I was so glad to hear the booming of the 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 193 

cannon again that I was no more than healthily 
weary of the sack and could have done ten or 
fifteen more in the afternoon after a grande halte. 

Here the trenches are held by a battalion of 
respectable Territorials. After making the coffee, 
some of us were lying under the trees and talk- 
ing to these old boys and watching a stoop-shoul- 
dered, unmedalled Captain talking to the Ser- 
geant- Major about something, leaning on a cane 
and looking much like the Da talking to Mike. 
Suddenly a couple of shells steamed past and 
broke in a neighboring quarter of the town. With 
incredible activity one and all of the old boys dis- 
appeared down an abris^ the Captain included. 
I don't think it even occurred to any Leg-ion- 
naire to move out of a comfortable position in 
the shade on a hot day for a couple — or even 
the fifty which followed — miserable TT's. A tri- 
fling incident, but really it brings out a point I 
am aiming at. 

Papa says he dislikes the reputation of the Le- 
gion, admitting that naturally he knows no more 
of it than that. If he could spend an hour in this 
village, I think he would change his mind, for 
the contrast is enlightening. 



194 LETTERS 

On the one hand are the Territorials, wherein 
every man is honest and respectable and legally 
married to a wife, and all that sort of thing. They 
live in dirty quarters, carry dirty rifles, and fall 
into their ranks in a gossipy way, every man 
chattering with his neighbor or the Sergeant. 

On the other hand, in the Legion everything is 
cleaned up and shipshape, with iron discipline and 
polished accoutrements, men who stand like ma- 
chines in the ranks, and of whom not a man but 
has utterly got over whatever fear he may ever 
have had of shells and so forth. With us the sous- 
officiers know every detail of the service back- 
ward and are mostly capable of exacting prompt 
obedience and respect by force of personality. As 
for the officers, it is well known that they are the 
best corps of officers in France, and probably in 
the world. 

The surroundings here are no more sordid 
than those of the common soldier anywhere, and 
as long as you are soldiering, I think it as well 
to do it with people who are soldiers to the very 
marrow of their bones. As for my refinement 
and fears that I may lose it, my hands are in 
poor form, rather toughened, and naturally I 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 195 

have picked up a lot of argot; otherwise, I have 
of late been reading Charles Lamb, Pickwick, 
Plutarch, and a deal of cheap French novels, and 
"War and Peace" over again. If I see we are 
to spend winter in the trenches again, am think- 
ing seriously of writing to London for a pair of 
real waterproof and practical boots and some 
Vicuna underwear. H. G.Wells' "Ann Veron- 
ica" I found interesting, though it was trite and 
irritating at bottom. I wonder if you remem- 
ber it. 

I wish from time to time you would send me 
one novel that you find interesting. Books are 
too heavy to carry when on the move. Naturally 
either in French or English. The state of the 
German mind, Plato, or Kant are not necessar}^ 
for the moment, and I have read Milton, Shake- 
speare, and Dante. 

September 2, ^ 1915 
Dear Papa: 

The night after writing to Mother of our trench- 
digging and marching, we received . . . every- 
thing and . . . doing the fifty- odd kilometers in 
two . . . but oh! how gladly, as far as I was 



196 LETTERS 

concerned. As we stopped in a small village on 
the way . . . the . . . came through, echoing 
through the , and their . . . like mad. Then 

we . . . that the . . . was on . . . and that . . . 
real . . . and . . . come at last. 

That evening our sick ones who came on by 
train saw our artillery on trains headed north, 
and rumor says that the 2 Etr anger moves out 
this morning. This time things are sure. We can't 
stay here more than two or three days, and drill 
and reviews and all the hell of military life is 
over. 

As to where we are going, nobody knows 
or cares very much. Some say Dardanelles, but I 
don't think the tirailleurs would ever be sent to 
take Constantinople. It is too much in the founda- 
tion of their creed. Others say Champagne, Ar- 
gonne, Alsace, etc., etc. Sukuna and I . . . and 
pray for Belgium and a general drive alongside 
the English. We both want it so much that we 
do not put much faith in our arguments, but there 
are really about ten good ones why that should 
. . . will be a second Arras, and this time there 
will be reinforcements behind, for now it is 
known that the Legion and the tirailleurs can 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 197 

break the German lines in one go, and it is merely 
a question of having troops that will go into the 
gap we make. I should think the English could 
hardly refuse that position, with the two million 
and the twenty kilometer front. 

This would be very glorious indeed, and as 
the regiment would immediately be very much 
shot up, it might get what was left of us out of 
winter in the trenches. On the other hand, it is 
a sad fact that regimental changes are always for 
the worse, and I suppose shortly you will hear 
ft-om me digging trenches in some filthy hole 
where it rains all the time. 

As for the ^85, thanks very much. It is easily 
thought I had better do without luxuries. I even 
see the point myself, but in the meantime a few 
francs make the well-nigh unbearable support- 
able with philosophy. 

With love to all, 

Henry 



September 5 , 1915 
Dear Mamma: 

As yet no progress, but we are still held ready 
to move at the first order. In the meantime it 



198 LETTERS 

rains, is cold, and I personally bore myself terri- 
bly and would welcome any conceivable change. 

Sukuna, as usual, is very calm, reads the 
"Weekly Times" including the advertisements, 
and tells me that when we are needed we will be 
called up. The obvious truth of the remark helps 
not at all. 

If I ever find myself in a regiment about to 
go back to refit again, I think I shall take pains to 
get myself decently wounded and pass the time 
in hospital. 

Hence letters from home are more gratefijl 
than ever before, and though it seems terrible 
to hear of Adam's downfall, it did make sort 
of natural reading. I almost feel like suggesting 
your riding Eve, who has proved herself able to 
stand on all fours for some years now. I suppose 
not to ride at all is the sensible course, though 
I should never advise it to you. 

I have had some experience of misery in the 
last months, and would never advise anything 
to any one that meant that, under any circum- 
stances. Don't let this work you up, for I took 
it with open eyes and am still very much of the 
same idea. I want to see the war from close to. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 199 

and do not allow incidentals to irritate for more 
than the moment. 

I am much interested in the Plattsburg Train- 
ing Camp. If you meet any one who went there, 
I wish you would skilfully pump him a bit and 
find out how practical the training was. Spirit 
and all seem to have been line, according to a 
stray copy of " Life" that turned up, but did the 
trainers learn to get the most out of the men in 
hard conditions — to make them march on sore 
feet when there were no wagons — get what food 
they could in a pouring rain — work night after 
night at the same dull digging — put up with the 
insolence of stupid sergeants, and all the real 
hardships of a campaign ? 

Association with such Legionnaire captains as 
Escall and our present Leroy bring it home more 
and more. What a rare bird even a first-rate 
captain is ! The present Leroy has been with us 
about a month. Came from hospital after May 9 
and has just been given the Officers' Cross of the 
Legion of Honor — a little gratification that 
many a colonel has to do without. I shall prob- 
ably write more of him anon. 

Love to the Da. Henry 



200 LETTERS 

September 12,1915 
Dear Mamma: 

Your letters, two of which arrived this morning, 

are a great blessing. A little sympathy is a very 

grateful thing when one is bored to death and 

exasperated by every one else in the world. 

I always try to write of the most interesting 
events in these surroundings, and the fact that 
you seem to look at them in something the same 
way makes it all seem a little less futile. 

As for your glorious French Army — I beg 
to differ. Glorious battalions d''Afrique as much 
as you choose and I will always go you one bet- 
ter, but the conscript of the "National Army" 
are another tale. Our old 3 de marche was never 
considered as a very remarkable outfit, but it is 
significant that all of the three secteurs we occu- 
pied, strengthened, fortified, and turned over to 
French regiments are now in the hands of the 
Germans — the last one, Tilloloy, what with the 
barbed-wire, sixty feet thereof, in fi-ont of the 
trenches, and heavily embanked loopholes, was 
untakable as long as the defenders stuck to their 
guns. That the thing was done by surprise makes 
it all the more inexcusable. 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 201 

To-morrow, so they say, we leave at 3 a.m. 
for Division Headquarters and Poincare presents 
the regiment with a flag. I suppose the cere- 
mony will be impressive, but do not look for- 
ward to it very much. Marching orders are all 
I ask of Heaven, and there seems no sign of 
them. 

Why we were rushed back from the trench- 
digging in Alsace and all our hopes raised is a 
question I suppose only the Chiefs can answer. 
The thought that they had their reasons gives 
one no comfort. 

I wish you could or would read "War and 
Peace" again. Tolstoi, even more than Stendahl, 
arrives at complete expression of military life. 
Incidentally, his conception of family life is no 
less utterly true to nature, at least as I see and 
experience it. 

With love to Adam's legs. May they bear you 

in peace hereafter. 

Henry 

Will write again after the review, if it ever 
comes off. 



202 LETTERS 

September 16, 1915 
Dear Ellen: 

Yours of August 30 was a true pleasure. The Da 
had just written me a backing-up of Wilson, in 
which he assumes that if I knew more of current 
events and had a wiser heart, I should already 
have come to the same conclusions. These things 
being so, you poured oil on the waters, and not 
the least of them was the fact that you scented 
that I sometimes fear a Pharisaical outlook on 
your part — when I say your, I mean it for you 
and your friends and entourage. 

I was in the ranks beside Kraimer, the man 
who made the ring, this morning, when, a divi- 
sion being drawn up, M. Poincare and M. Mille- 
rand and General de Castelnau and a lot of others 
presented the regiment with a flag decorated with 
the grande croix de guerre. When the collective 
bugles crashed out with the 'Mz/ drapeau'''' and 
the twenty thousand rifles flew up to the present 
arms, there were tears in his eyes and he whis- 
pered, " Chez nous a Bel a Bes on porte la Legion 
d^Honneur?'' The President's speech was good 
and very short and addressed — it is characteristic 
of the French attitude towards the Legion — to 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 203 

the Zouaves and tirailleurs^ the 4*^^ regiment 
of the latter having received a flag as well. He 
spoke of the Marne, where the Division broke 
the Prussian guard, and ended up with a ringing 
praise for the action north of Arras. It was also 
characteristic that the Legion received its flag 
before the others, and that our Colonel gave the 
commands. 

I shall write again in three or four days. Now 
I must go and bathe in a mountain stream. 
Thirty-five kilometers on top of the review and 
the defile make it necessary. 

With love, 

Henry 



2<* Regiment de marche du 1 «^ Etranger 



COMTE— RENDU 



Capitaine Gabet: 

En r^ponse a votre note du 28, j'ai I'honneur 
de vous rendre compte que le legionnaire Farns- 
worth, a ete tue le 28 Septembre. C'etait un ex- 



204 LETTERS 

cellent sujet. Ci joint en retour la demande de 
renseignements de I'ambassade. 

Le Capitaine Command^ la C'^ 

Lallseliez 
Aux Armees le 28 Octohre, 1915 



October 29, 1915 
Robert Bliss, Esq., 

Ambassade des Rtats-Unis d' Amerique a Paris 

Sir: 

I have the honor of receiving your letter of Oc- 
tober 25. 

The captain of this company has obtained the 
enclosed note relating to Mr. Henry W. Fams- 
worth's death. I was not with him in the battle 
where he died, but knew about it by some of the 
men in his company. I appreciated him very 
much indeed. 

I am, Sir, at your entire disposal. 

Your obedient servant, 

AUGUSTIN HeREDIA 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 205 

Hospital Complimentaire 
1 7 Pre Aux Clercs, 

Lyon (^Brettaux)^ France^ 

October 2, 1915 
Dear Mr. Farnsworth: 
At the request of your son, I am to say with 
real pain that he was severely wounded on the 
afternoon of the 28*^ of September last, on the 
4*^ day of the battle of Champagne, a little in 
fi-ont of the German wire entanglements of the 
second line before the Fortin deNavarin. A large 
number of machine guns were on the right flank, 
and in front, where they were concentrating their 
fire on the leading files of the attacking party, and 
no stretcher-bearer could possibly reach the spot 
where he was lying. Toward dusk the column 
was still being held up. I left for the rear about 
this time, but all I could do, I regret to say, was 
to ask medical people to go up if possible. As one 
who has seen a great deal of him here, I would 
venture to mention how much his coolness under 
fire has on occasions helped to steady the section, 
and how his indifference to danger prompted him 
at all times to volunteer for the most dangerous 
posts. Under a withering rifle and machine gun 



206 LETTERS 

fire, he denied my first word and dug a hole for 
me, to which act I probably owe my life. Up to 
the present, no fi-esh information of him has come 
my way, but I shall always be glad to fijmish 
any previous news. May I here express my pro- 
found and sincere sympathies. 

Yours very truly, 

J. L. V. SUKUNA 



Camp d'Jirovd^ November 2 , 1915 

To Groton School 

Groton^ Massachusetts : 
I suppose you have heard by now that Henry 
Farnsworth was killed in Champagne in the last 
days of September. A brave fellow he was and 
a gallant one. The two or three times I met him 
at college he made little impression. But of the 
months I knew him in the Legion, I respected 
him and enjoyed his companionship more and 
more. When everything was going badly — we 
were disreputably officered in the 3"*^ de marche 
— and every man was finding fault, grumbling, 
making all the possible steps to get out of the 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 207 

Legion into French regiments, he was always 
optimistic, serene, and an immense moral force 
in his company. "Leave the Legion? Never!" 
When we were transferred to the 2^ de marche 
and the true Legion, then he was exultant. 
Many of the 3"^^ felt insulted to be put with 
these "desperate characters," but he only told 
them since they had come to fight, they should be 
the more happy to be put with the most fearless, 
perhaps the most famous regiment in France, 
since the 9*^^ of May and 16*^ of June. I know 
he could have wished for nothing more glorious 
than to die as he did when the 1^* Etranger 
again covered itself with honor on the 29*^^. 
The Tirailleurs Algeriens flinched on the right, 
but his Battalion went on and was demolished. 
Victor Chapman 



WITH THE LEGION IN THE 
CHAMPAGNE 

By J. L. V. SuKUNA 

The 24'^^ September broke a close and warm 
day. The severe cannonading of the two previ- 
ous days had perceptibly calmed down. The rou- 
tine of the last few nights — communication-trench 
digging in the white clay soil of the Champagne 
District — had been dispensed with the evening 
before, an omnious sign, the old Legionnaires 
whispered, of the closeness of the impending 
storm. Here and there, basking in the sun, were 
scattered small groups discussing the superiority 
of the French artillery, the possible rapidity of 
the advance, — for an advance all believed it 
would be, — or the probable part of the Mo- 
roccan Division in the coming conflict. In the 2^ 
Company's camp a young Cambridge under- 
graduate, a half-blue, was sparring with his ad- 
jutant before an excited and sympathetic audi- 
ence. Throughout the day the military road run- 
ning from Suippes was filled with Territorial 
units, men of the Colonial Corps, and vehicles of 
every kind and description. Late in the after- 



210 LETTERS 

noon the " fall in " was called, and the Colonel, vis- 
ibly moved, announced the part allotted to the 
regiment. It was to be in reserve to support the 
Turcos — Zouaves and Algerian Rifles — and 
the 2d Etranger^ upon whom of the Moroccan 
Division had fallen the honor of participating in 
the great initial assault. That evening the regi- 
ment was to move forward to take up position. 
The high-strung feeling of expectancy culminat- 
ing in the Colonel's speech brought in its wake a 
reactionaiy feeling, confused and depressing. The 
hours seemed so long. All sense of relation and 
the power of connective thought appeared either 
lost or hopelessly dulled. Some laid down to rest; 
but the younger and the less experienced, betray- 
ing unmistakable signs of nervousness, sat 'round 
dimly lit camp-fires, chatting disconnectedly. The 
night was dark and still. Overhead ominous black 
clouds seemed to be furtively gathering forces. 
At 1 a.m. the rassemhlement was called, and a 
few minutes later the Legion was en route^ head- 
ing for the first line trenches in close proximity 
to Souain. 

Drizzling rain was falling. The communica- 
tion-trenches, running immediately behind the 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 211 

first line trenches, were reached at 2:30 a.m. Or- 
ders were given to settle down ; the wait would 
probably be for some hours. Cannonading had 
begun again, growing in intensity almost imper- 
ceptibly. The heavy guns, far away in the rear, 
were heavily engaged. Towards dawn the field 
artillery immediately behind the Legion began 
to thunder and roar. From a deserted observa- 
tion post a magnificent view of the bombard- 
ment was seen. About two hundred yards away 
there zigzagged a narrow white line, the parapet 
of the enemy trenches. Away to the left it dis- 
appeared in the declivity of the ground, and to 
the right it ran back until it was lost behind a 
barren white ridge. Every moment white flashes 
of light — forked lightning in a tropical storm, 
they looked like — seemed to dance over that thin 
white line, followed by columns of smoke of vary- 
ing sizes, some black and some white in color, 
with others of a yellow-bluish hue; and then ren- 
dering crashes as the pieces of exploded steel flew 
on their deadly errand. The air rocked and quiv- 
ered. The vibration seemed to penetrate every 
fibre. Overhead the endless streams of missiles 
firom the heavy guns hissed, and below them the 



212 LETTERS 

innumerable shells of the soixante-quinze sang 
and howled not unmusically. But the German 
guns held a dignified silence. Rain was falling 
in torrents. At 8 a.m. the artillery fire had de- 
veloped into one continuous and incessant roar. 
From the observation post the thin white line 
was no longer visible. It was entirely enveloped 
in dust, smoke, and flame. The German guns 
were now firing spasmodically at the field- pieces 
to the rear; but some shells were falling in the 
trenches. The order to move came at last. Cold, 
stiff, and hungry, it was a welcome change. Rifle 
and machine gun fire could now be heard above 
the roar of the guns. The attack had opened. 
Through the Boyau de Martinique came a con- 
tinual stream of wounded. The Germans were 
using tear shells. The eyes smarted and ached, 
and tears flowed abundantly, obscuring one's 
view, in that narrow way full of wounded. 

After half an hour's slow progress a shallow, 
narrow communication-trench, fi-om which the 
Turcos had rushed to the assault, midway between 
the enemy's first line and our own, was reached. 
The drain was a heart-rending sight, fiill of the 
dead and dying, those who in the previous nights 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 213 

had contributed by hard and difficult digging to 
minimize the losses of this day. Some German 
field batteries, somewhere on the Souain-Tahure 
Road, were raining shrapnel on that trench of 
the dead and at the approaches in the rear, where 
two squadrons of cavalry were vainly endeavor- 
ing to hack through that curtain of lead. Thrice 
they reformed and thrice they were scattered. For 
some time no further progress was possible. Sud- 
denly a battery of soixante-quinze began firing 
short, dropping several shells into the Legion. 
For a few minutes a panic threatened. It was 
during these critical moments that Captain Junod 
rendered signal service: stepping out of the 
trench and calmly walking along the parapet, in 
full view of the enemy, he rallied the men. The 
enemy's first line had long ago fallen; but desper- 
ate hand-to-hand fighting was still taking place in 
the woods immediately in front. A halt was called 
at the German first line trenches to gather in pris- 
oners and to reform the line. The havoc wrought 
by the French bombardment was everywhere 
very evident — enormous holes, barbed wire en- 
tanglements completely destroyed, trenches filled 
in and dig-outs smashed. Sandbag loopholes 



214 LETTERS 

above seemed able to withstand the unprece- 
dented battery, and some of these were in a re- 
markable state of preservation. 

The German heavy guns and few field-pieces 
were now heavily engaged in a tir de barrage. At 
3 p.m. the order came to advance in support of 
the Turcos. Rain had again begun to fall. From 
the direction of Souain French field batteries 
were trotting forward in support of the infantry 
advance. Huge shells, raising columns of black 
smoke hundred feet in height, were bursting all 
around them; but on they came, apparently not 
in the least concerned. From a small valley south 
of Navarin came the sharp crackle of rifle fire, 
and in the bluish purple light of the gray autumn 
twilight, troops of various regiments — Chas- 
seurs., Infantry of the Line, Colonials — could be 
made out deploying to the right and left;. Sud- 
denly a strange bugle call rang out, followed in- 
stantly by loud and continued cheering. Doubts 
were soon dissipated as French bugles began 
sounding the charge. Chasseurs .^l^urcos., Legion- 
naires., mingled in that fight, and in a few minutes 
all was over. The German onslaught had been 
met and broken. Early that night the Legion 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 215 

replaced the Turcos in the first line. The Ger- 
mans, evidently very nervous, kept throwing up 
lights all through the night, followed by salvos 
of rifle fire. 

Early next morning some units of the Chas- 
seurs relieved the Legion; the whole of the 
Moroccan Division being now gradually placed 
in the reserve. The regiment took up position in 
a valley north of Souain at 6 a.m. in groups of 
sections. Its mission, it seems, was to attract the 
enemy's fire while along the wooded ridge to 
the east reinforcements could pass unmolested in 
the direction of the Butte, Souain, and Nava- 
rin. Through the valley ran the main German 
communication-trench between Navarin and 
the trenches passing Souain. It was the obvious 
route for fresh troops to take. Shortly after 
7 a.m. a tir de barrage^ which increased in in- 
tensity as the day wore on, was directed on the 
valley and on the whole length of the communi- 
cation-trench. It was a perfect inferno. Officers 
and men went down quickly; but the Legion 
clung on all day, sections changing position fre- 
quently. At dusk the regiment was ordered to 
retire to the southern end of the wooded ridge. 



2 1 6 LETTERS 

then to take its place with the Division which 
had now been all withdrawn. The darkness, the 
limited space, and above all the devastating ar- 
tillery fire rendered the movement an extremely 
difficult one to execute in good order and with- 
out heavy loss. In the circumstances confusion 
was inevitable. Captains lost their companies and 
men their section and squad commanders. Many 
strayed away, only to perish in the hurricane of 
steel. Camped on the wooded ridge, the expla- 
nations, the anecdotes given gratuitously of that 
trying day, the charges and counter-charges, 
would have made the heart of Tolstoi glad. 

The morning of the 27^^ September was com- 
paratively quiet; the enemy's fire being again 
mainly directed on the valley below. In the mean- 
time, the regiment proceeded to dig itself in. 
Towards noon Battalion A was called upon to 
relieve units of the Turcos in the second line, at 
the northern end of the communication-trench 
connecting Navarin and Souain. The day was 
showery and cold, with occasional strong blasts 
of wind. Away behind the Fortin de Navarin a 
German observation balloon floated in the air. 
This fresh movement of troops was at once sig- 



HENRY FARNS WORTH 2\7 

nailed and some German field batteries imme- 
diately opened a murderous fire on the commu- 
nication-trench; while the valley to the south was 
again ploughed with huge shells. For half an hour 
a fire more accurate and intense than anything yet 
experienced devastated the ranks. Some sections 
entirely disappeared. But during the early part of 
the afternoon several batteries oi soixante-quinze 
moved up into the valley between the ridge oc- 
cupied by the Moroccan Division and the Souain- 
Tahure Road, and these guns after a few rounds 
silenced the enemy's field-pieces. The night of 
the 27*^ was passed quietly in the wood, that is, 
so far as bombardment by the enemy was con- 
cerned; but all night long the soixante-quirvze 
near the Souain-Tahure Road kept up an inces- 
sant war. 

On the early morning of the 28*^ the German 
heavy guns began searching for these batteries, 
tearing and ploughing up in all directions the ridge 
and woods covering the Division. The noise and 
din of the high-explosive shells were ear-shatter- 
ing, and the huge columns of thick black smoke 
were awe inspiring. But clear above the thunder 
and crash of the Teutonic storm the decisive bark 



2 1 8 LETTERS 

of the 75's from the valley below rang sharp and 
true. At 2 p.m. the order to prepare to attack 
passed 'round, and an hour later the Legion, with 
gaps filled up, moved out in columns of double 
companies. The bombardment was still heavy, 
and as the regiment following the ridge passed 
by the Zouaves and Algerian rifles, men were 
falling on all sides. Sweeping 'round to the north- 
west at the end of the ridge, the Commandants 
led their men in the direction of the Fortin de 
Navarin. In the woods on the left the infantry in 
the first line were closely nestled in their trenches, 
some knee-deep, others the regulation depth. 
Stray bullets began to sing in the air. At the 
crest before the Fortin de Navarin the regiment 
halted for a few minutes to enable the Turcos 
to come into line on the left. The enemy were 
still about two hundred yards away. And then, 
with bayonets fixed, '"''En avantf'' Through a 
little scraggy pine avenue Battalion A rushed. 
Away to the left, in the open space, the Turcos 
were advancing. Bullets sang louder in the air. 
Tap, tap, tap, — the machine guns were firing 
methodically. A short halt was called and an- 
other rush till the wire entanglements of the enemy 



HENRY FARNSWORTH 219 

were clearly visible — whole and untouched. 
Here again for some reason unknown the regi- 
ment halted. It was now near 4 p.m., and at 
this juncture no further advance could possibly 
have been undertaken in the face of converging 
machine gun fire from the wood on the half- 
left front, from the Ferme de Navarin, and from 
the wood on the right flank. The leading files 
suffered severely. Of the officers the best had al- 
ready fallen. The Commandant was dead. Pine 
leaves and branches cut off' by bullets were fall- 
ing like rain. The groans of the wounded and the 
cries of the dying sickened and weakened one. 
Still no orders came. Through it all, when the 
fire was at its heaviest, could be heard the voice 
of Captain Sunod, upon whom had developed 
the command of the Battalion : ^^Ne boiigez pas^ 
mes enfants!''' And there the Legion stayed until 
far into the night. 




^'^ 



^'FARInSWORTH^ 



H 129 79 



0^ 



o V 




t^O^ 



^^ 






^' 









vOv-, 



■:^^ %/■ 






^ ^ 



"'^'^41it>W 






'o » 


.-^ 


A 


- 


'<■ 


0^ 


■'' "°- 


■*b 


v-^ 




_^ 




^x. 








^^ .. 












■ .^^ 


\ 



A 



^.^ 










1 



'^ *o* ^* Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce 
^ * -» (D Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 

"^jr ^^32,"- ^ -^ Treatment Date: 



0' 



^^ c^' W . .^ 

Q ^ PreservationTechnologii 

^ 'V' A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATI 

r\ 111 Thomson Park Drive 

Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 

^ , , (724)779-2111 




>.^' 






0' 



.0 V: 



r/): 






^■p. 









aife'^ '\.^*'' :^IC^.'\ "W^ 




.0 ^, - ^' 














